


Innocence Lost

by Suma99



Series: Memories [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Multi, Weapon Plus, Weapon X Project
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 64,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suma99/pseuds/Suma99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The woman sat motionless, gazing into the infinite depths of the water below. She had failed. Reaching out, a single finger touched the smooth surface, spreading ripples across the glassy pool. When the waters had settled, an image had appeared on it. A little girl, scared, alone. When the finger touched the water again, the image did not distort, but began to move.</p><p>Some things are best left alone. Some people maybe should not be saved. Or maybe they just can't. How can a child cope with everything that they did to her? How could an adult learn to live? So many unanswered questions left, even now at the end of everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Child

Disclaimer: Any disclaimer I make isn't legally valid anyway. So there's no real point of me doing this, is there?

 

The woman sat motionless, gazing into the infinite depths of the water below. So sad. Nothing left. She had failed. Reaching out, a single finger touched the smooth surface, spreading ripples across the glassy pool. When the waters had settled, an image had appeared on it. A little girl, scared, alone. Her red hair shorn short, dressed in a loose white robe. Once again, the hand reached out, but when the finger touched the water, the image did not distort, but began to move.

 

* * *

 

 

The little girl cried, sobbing for a family she barely remembered. A word she knew was important slid past her lips.

“Maman”

The smooth, featureless metal walls began to distort and a tall bearded man in a pristine lab-coat entered. The girl withdrew, suddenly terrified. The man’s lips twitched, as if he was holding back a smile. The child drew back, only to find the chain around her wrists and neck had tightened, preventing movement. A dart fired from the wall, hitting her in the arm. A slight widening of the eyes, a flash of fear and then she was unconscious. The man busied himself, removing the heavy chains swiftly before signalling the stretcher through. The child was lifted as if she weighed nothing, placed with infinite care on the rough white material. Moving fast through the corridors, the man began readying himself.

The theatre was pristine, unused. With a slight smile he placed on the mask and gloves, as a strip of hair was shaved from the child’s head, leaving an area perfect for entry. The shining pieces of metal on the tray, destined for the girl’s brain, glistened, full of knowledge. Knowledge that would make the perfect weapon. Knowledge of what she one day would be. Humming softly to himself, he picked up the delicate scalpel for the first incision. 

* * *

 

The girl sat, groggy and confused in her cell, feeling the blood dry on the back of her head. Thoughts that didn’t belong to her were rushing through her head, too fast for a three-year-old to comprehend.

“The recoil on an AK-47 is…”

“The expert in battle moves the enemy…”

“A fatal mistake in unarmed combat is to…”

“A single strike to the suprasternal notch can cause severe internal bleeding…”

As the first sting of a salty tear began to well up at this intrusion to her thoughts, she realized she could understand the words spoken outside the cell for the first time in their entirety, instead of the few words she had picked up over time.

“Did the Prof say what this thing was capable of?”

“No, but the way he’s acting, it’ll be better than an army.”

“You’re telling me. Apparently, the first one killed everyone in the facility in under ten minutes when it broke out.”

“And we’re guarding this thing?”

“Don’t worry. The last one was an adult. The most this one can do is bite our ankles.”

“I don’t know. I can’t help but feel a little bad. Locking up a kid and all…”

“Are you kidding? That isn’t a kid, okay? That’s a weapon in training. Don’t **ever** yet the Prof hear you call **it** a kid.”

An image flashed through her head. A man. Short. Dark hair. Snarl sneaking past his lips. Three claws, gleaming with metal extended through his hand, standing over a man, bleeding on the floor. And then a whisper in the darkest corner of her mind.

“This is what you will one day be…”

Scared, alone and not even safe in her own head anymore, the girl-weapon cried herself to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The woman leaned back, a sad smile on her lips. So scared. So alone. She longed to reach out, give the child a promise of the beautiful things to come. But she couldn’t. There was nothing left to reach out to. The waters swirled, blurring the sleeping girl and replacing it with another image. The same girl, now a few years older, her hair growing into a bob, with a single defiant black streak against the red. Dressed in identical white robes and holding a sword with two hands, trying hard not to over balance. The woman looked at the image and then, almost as if she didn’t care- how could she not care, she cared so, **so** much- waved a hand, starting the image moving. 

 

* * *

 

 

The girl danced, dodging the lasers and ducking under darts. The sword flashed and a flying bot was cut down in mid-air. The sweat running down her face was a testament to the difficult challenge. The Professor was watching with interest. Of course he was. Here was **his** experiment, his **creation** , running a gauntlet most adult agents at the peak of their ability couldn’t handle. Even at six years of age, it appeared he had chosen well. Even though the digital implants enhanced her learning ability a hundredfold, she appeared to be naturally intelligent, agile and resilient to anything they could throw at her.

“And that is without its power activated…”

The child finished with a broad sweep of the sword, decapitating the final robot. She held the sword, which was almost as big as she was tall, in a momentary salute before allowing her exhausted arms to drop. Instantly, a huge shock of electricity from the collar around her neck caused her to snap back to attention, a single tear rolling down her other impassive face. Once again, there was the hum of electricity as the collar did its job. The Professor strode out and began berating her.

“Tears are weak! We have **no** weaklings here! And show respect. The exercise has not finished until the instructor says it has. What are you?”

There was a flash of something, almost rebellious, in her eyes until the veil of indifference dropped down and she replied in a dull monotone.

“I am a weakling. I am nothing. I am not worthy of the honour bestowed on me. I will never be Weapon X. I owe my life to the Professor’s kindness. I will be the best. I will be Weapon X-ii.”

The Professor smiled and turned away. Deep down, in a twisted way, he cared for the child. She would be his legacy. She was perfect. And her spirit was his. 

 

* * *

 

 

The woman watched in silence as scene after scene of this barbaric cruelty ensured. The girl grew stronger, the tasks harder, the thanks less. She began to listen, to learn. Not out of choice, but out of a desperate need to be recognized. She learned what was already in her mind. It wasn’t so much being taught as being reminded. She grew faster than a child should, becoming an adult in some areas, a child in others. Gradually she was almost trusted. No more was she tranquillized any time they wanted to take her anywhere. The chains were still there, but they were slowly loosened. She was able to move, explore the room that was her home. But it wouldn’t be **her** home alone for long.

 

* * *

 

 

The girl entered the room, exhausted after training. She had done well enough to be allowed sleep and food. A stirring in the corner had her on instant alert, hands snapping up to a guard position, feet moving quickly, taking her weight on the back leg, ready to snap round in a roundhouse kick. The bundle in the corner moaned again, more pitiful than threatening. She moved closer, warily but not with her usual caution. Her steps were carefully placed, silent. She didn’t walk like a child. She walked like a predator. A dishevelled head, eyes red with tears, appeared from under the blanket, saw the girl and ducked back in as a hand swung round, smashing into the concrete floor. The head peered out again and saw the same expression of fear and surprise on the girls face as its own. Gradually, almost as if to show it meant no harm, the figure uncurled and stood up. A second girl, gangly and awkward looking, all arms and legs, gazing at the other, wary, graceful girl, a whole head shorter but who could obviously beat the other in an instant if required. The eyes were different as well. The newcomer’s eyes were those of a child, innocent and scared. The shorter girl had a look of world-weariness not seen even in adults and suggested suffering and sorrow. But there was still a hint of steel in their golden depths, as if there was still a little uncrushed spirit, still a child deep down. The other girl seemed to sense her confusion and launched in.

“I’m Eva. Who are you?”

The girl’s mind raced, finding the language in her data banks and translating it.

“Weapon X-ii.”

If Eva was surprised, she didn’t show it.

“Too long. I’ll just call you Xii.”

The girl appeared surprised. In all her years, no one had ever treated her with such frank friendliness.  Tentatively she tried the facial expression of the other. The corners of her mouth moved up and her lips parted, showing her teeth. The result was astonishing.

Eva flung her arms around the newly named Xii and gave her an exuberant hug. Only for both to be racked with the pains of an electric shock. Xii remained upright, the smile dropping from her face and went silently to stand against the wall and place her arms above her head for the cuffs to slide out of the wall to shackle her wrists. Her eyes showed only resignation and sorrow that the hard work of the day had gone unrewarded. Eva lay crying on the floor, as shock after shock ran through her body and she couldn’t stop the tears.

Xii just sat and looked on. Even when the other girl looked at her pleadingly, she didn’t react. She stared into space and tried to escape the living hell of her life. 

 

* * *

 

Once more the woman moved back from the water. Her face was pensive, thoughtful. The girl Eva was so full of life. She had obviously grown up in a normal family. It was Xii who was the enigma, Xii who she was interested in. The child who was an adult and a weapon and so many other things. The child with a heart of fire and ice and a spirit of adamantium. The girl with a thousand names. The girl with so much to gain…and so much to lose. 

 

* * *

 

 

The two girls danced around in a barrage of lasers. Xii was still swifter, stronger but Eva had lost her awkwardness. They were best of friends. Xii carried the brunt of the work and Eva helped in her own, unique way. She reached out to the image of a gun on the wall and concentrated. The image solidified and burst out of the wall and she threw the gun to Xii, who immediately began the difficult task of shooting the weaponry on the walls. They moved in unison, graceful and smooth, towards the next image and the one after that. Eva’s mutant ability keeping them safe, while Xii’s perfect aim, a mixture of natural talent, training and data banks, prevented either from going down to a burst of white fire. The last turret fell and the girls exchanged smiles. They had grown closer as the years went by, with Xii showing Eva the ropes and helping her when she wasn’t strong enough to complete tasks. Strictly speaking, Eva was Eden. But she still remembered the family who had sold her on discovery their third child was a mutant and sometimes thought about her brothers. For Xii, Eva was her only family. Their only other friend had been a guard, the one who had expressed doubts about “locking up a kid”, who had become their greatest ally. He talked to them and they learnt more from him of the world than anywhere else. He had remained out of a need to protect the two children who were growing up faster than a child deserved. At ten, they acted more like people who had lived a lifetime. He had left though. Xii never mentioned the sound of a gunshot she had heard on the night he had signed off for the last time.

 

* * *

 

The woman sat back. She wished she could go back and tell the man what he had done. He had given a child the chance to be a child. The waters swirled again and she recoiled. Not this. Please not this. She didn’t want to see this again. But the images moved on regardless.

 

* * *

 

 

The two girls squeezed through the ventilation shaft. It was hot and every ten seconds a blast of air sent them sliding backwards. It had been the work of years. They had studied schematics, sketched portraits of themselves on the wall. To the guards watching, the two girls were sleeping in their cots. It was the tenth anniversary of Xii’s arrival. She was twelve. Eva was thirteen. Just. She had used much of her energy creating bodies from the sketches, effectively brain-dead clones. Xii was helping carry her. Finally, they pushed back the last air vent and stepped into the driving blizzard. They struggled through wave after wave of thick snow, one girl carrying the weight of the other. Both were strong and healthy, but neither had eaten that day and they weren’t going to last long. Sooner or later something was going to go wrong. Xii took a step wrong, caught her ankle in a hidden burrow, fell and heard her leg give a sickening crack. Eva stopped, but Xii waved her on, a single word passing through her lips that passed a death sentence on one of them.

“Go…”

Eva looked back once, then continued, as Xii lay back and waited for the howling dogs to find her.

 

* * *

 

 

Once more the woman looked on in sadness as Xii was found, half dead from exposure and pain.

 

* * *

 

 

The guards were shocked. Years of being told to care for the Weapon and now they were being told to punish her, **it** , as they saw fit. They had finally decided on the dogs. She sat there, expressionless. Gazing through the unbreakable glass, golden feline eyes locked in them. The dogs attacked and a slight whimper past her lips and then nothing. She sat as wave after wave of pain ran through her. Suddenly, the door slid back and a body was thrown in. Eva. Broken, the life passing from her as Xii pushed her way through the vicious dogs to get close. But as she reached her, she smelt the life slip from her battered body. Xii screamed. The scream of someone who had lost their dearest friend, their only reason for living. Her hands bunched into fists and sudden pain caused her to scream again. Smooth bone slid from her hands, passing through her finger joints, telescopically unfurling, lengthening. At the same time, the wounds in her stomach and legs began to heal. Pain beyond any torture the Professor could devise ran through her and a rage so cold and terrible lost the child. There was no Xii, just the beast, the murderer. The human who moved so fast and so ruthlessly that the dogs didn’t know what hit them. Then the child gained control and screamed. She screamed with the pain of someone who had lost their innocence forever.

 

* * *

 

The woman again paused in her reflections. Was that it? The first time the beast had been released. How crude. That anger wasn’t animal. That was the anger of the worst of humanity. An animal’s rage is pure. And the emotions swirling from the pool were tainted with hate and fear and cruelty. And above all, a thirst for revenge.

 


	2. Weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some wounds can refuse to heal. Some people are broken inside. And how can anyone heal that?

Disclaimer: I don’t own the X-Men or any of their characters. Tora and Weapon X-ii are my own though. 

She was dangerous. They all said that. Ever since Project: Eden had died, Weapon X-ii had become lethal. She had mauled a guard, went on hunger strikes, stood under a pile driver in a suicide attempt. No one dared enter her cell unless she was restrained. To move her, they required vast amounts of tranquillisers. Her healing peaked then dipped, her claws would cut through concrete yet shatter on wood. They said she was insane. And quietly, in the dark corners, they whispered that had been the plan all along.

Xii knew none of the whispers. All she knew was that she was responsible for Eva’s death. She was the strong one, the one who had been able to survive the blizzard. But she had ordered Eva on and in doing so killed her greatest, her only friend. The claws that slid from her hands were special. Cuts from them didn’t heal. She could smell the fluid that slid along their length and realized it halted her fast healing. Now, heavy gloves covered her hands, after yet another suicide attempt. Scars ran around her wrists, but they had taken to solving that. Cuts along the scars, perfect healing. No nasty marks to detract from the appearance of their perfect weapon. She wasn’t beautiful. She was too wiry, her eyes haunted by ghosts of the past. But there was something about her fierce golden eyes, eyes that dug into you, confronted you. They were the eyes of a predator. The perfect predator. The one who could, who **would** hunt anything.

 

* * *

 

 

No child of 13 should have those eyes. The woman’s eyes flickered, soft and golden. The eyes were liquid, full of love and caring. As different from the anger and hate in the girl’s eyes as could be. The eyes of the woman were sad though. Sad in a way you could only be when you were so happy and then lost something dear to you.

 

* * *

 

 

The girl was bound. Her eyes were as filled with hate as they had been for the past two years. Twelve years to the day after being brought to the facility. It was her fourteenth birthday. She was strong. She was important. She’d realised that when Eva had been killed. Eva had been disposable. Xii was unique. No one else had her ability. No one but Weapon X. Once Xii had **admired** the man. The closer she had been to him, the better she had been treated. Now she hated him with a passion reserved only for him and the man who had killed Eva. And now they wanted her to **become** him. They were attaching the various drips and syringes, cowering beneath her fiery gaze. Despite the bonds, every man in the room knew that she could break free is she could be bothered to. They heard the argument coming closer.

“…but she is not ready. The process could kill, or at the very least cripple her. Her bones aren’t strong enough…”

“Professor Robson, I suggest you follow through with your pet **project**. My employers are not in the habit of waiting for things they have paid for.”

“She isn’t strong enough. Weapon X was an adult when the process was initiated.”

“Perhaps my employers will take their business elsewhere. I hear a group in the States has managed to clone Weapon X…”

“This project is superior to Weapon X or any other Weapon Plus project so far. She is capable of killing Weapon X, something ever other weapon has **failed** to do…”  
“Spare me your excuses. I have come to inspect the **goods**. I’d better be impressed.”

The Professor entered, followed by an imposing man, a stranger. Xii couldn’t see his face but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered. Anyway, she barely used her eyes anymore. Smell told so much more. The man was calm. He wasn’t afraid and he had little scent. So different from the other men who came to talk to the Professor. They were subordinates. This man was a leader. His hand grabbed her face and turned it towards him. Her lips slid apart in a feral snarl, she snapped her head away. He laughed coldly.

“Start the process.”

And she was lowered into the tank and her bones froze then burned.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Echoes of pain sounded inside the cavernous room. The woman recoiled, breaking contact. Pain… Fire and ice…breaking and strengthening at the same time. The girl was becoming unbreakable. But at the same time she was so fragile.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She lay there, cold, motionless. At first glance it looked as if she was dead. But a slight movement of the chest, a flicker of an eyelid betrayed her life. She was broken. The pain had seen to that. She had felt her bones trying to grow and the metal laced into them pulling it together. It had hurt so much. It still hurt. Deep down she knew the pain would never go away. She was broken but they called her unbreakable. She was the girl with an adamantium skeleton. The girl to equal Weapon X. The stranger had been the one to pull her back out. She had been half-dead. The words he had whispered ran through her head.

“There now. That didn’t hurt too much, did it?”

She couldn’t answer. She was dying. She had felt the poison in her bones, passing into her bloodstream and knew that unless her healing kicked in soon she’d succumb to the deadly bite. Finally she felt something happen and her laboured breathing calmed. She would live. She looked at the steel gloves and concentrated. She was still pain-drunk but the four hollow bone claws slid from her hands and through the holes in her finger bones. But the claws were bone no longer. Smooth metal tore through steel, flawless, unbreakable. Now angry, she shattered the chains with one swift strike and then proceeded to carve deep into the concrete the one thing she wanted more than anything.

LEAVE ME ALONE!

 

 

* * *

 

 

The woman sat back. Now for the test of Xii’s humanity. Now to see if she was human or animal. Now to see how brave she really was.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Xii stood at the end of the training room in silence. She’d been unfit to train for weeks as her body had acclimatised to the metal that had bonded with it. The man had planned to come later to see how worthy she was of his mysterious employers’ money. The door at the other end of the room opened and a man was pushed in. Her nostrils flared as she caught the scent. The scent that had permeated Eva’s body. The scent of death. Eva’s murderer. And they were **giving** him to her. She leapt forward, powerful and lithe. The man had a gun but the bullet wounds healed almost as soon as they tore her skin. The gun fell apart, cut lengthways in a single adamantium stroke and the claws were digging into the man’s neck. A voice came across the speaker system.

“Kill him.”

Xii looked into the eyes of the man she had hated for two years. And recoiled. The eyes could have been Eva’s. Scared, confused and sad. So sad. Eva had looked at her like that. In that moment Xii made a decision. Her claws slid smoothly back into her hands and she offered her arm to the guard. Hesitantly, as if he didn’t believe this was possible, he took her outstretched hand and she pulled him upright. No words were spoken but the meaning was clear.

“I forgive you. Killing is wrong.”

The man tried a tentative smile that changed to a look of shock as a smoking bullet hole appeared in his chest. Xii turned, claws sliding out with a “Chikt” noise and then collapsed as the chips in her brain blocked the neuron pathways.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

So she had listened to her heart. The woman sat back. Xii had chosen the darker of the two roads but would be rewarded in the end for her compassion. But the rewards would come later. First there would be pain.

 

* * *

 

 

She woke face down in darkness. Metal bands help down her wrists, waist and neck. Her back was bare and the room smelt of blood. The lights flared on, hurting her already sensitive eyes. There was a noise as a motor above her whirred into life and then she sensed it. Blades moving downwards. Towards her back. She tried to move but the bands held her tight. She couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t apply enough force to lever off the surgeons stretcher she was on. And then her back was ripped open from shoulder to hip, on both sides. An X of fire, permanent. She could smell the heal-halter on the blades. There was blood and lots of it. The swords stopped when they reached her spine, unable to slice through the unbreakable metal. But it was still deep enough to make her spasm, and scream. Screams that couldn’t be heard. Who listens in the wilderness?

 

 

* * *

 

 

The woman’s eyes were sad and angry at the same time. This child was suffering for her beliefs yet none were there to see her triumph. If people knew of her plight, would they respond? She knew but the answer puzzled her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The scabs were cracking on her back. She knew they were permanent. But she welcomed them. She wasn’t whole physically, like she had never been whole spiritually. The words from outside bore into her skull.

“You promised me a weapon. Not a spy, not a bodyguard. An assassin. One who would do anything we asked. And now you tell me she has a conscience. We’re withdrawing our funding. The X-23 project is a better choice.”

“You don’t understand. Even if she is useless as a weapon, think of the breeding possibilities. We could splice her DNA with that of Weapon X, Sabretooth or any of the other weapons…”

“Don’t make excuses. She’s a coward. A weakling. We have no time for weaklings.”

“Even if she refused to kill the man, she is still a perfect spy. She hacked the Pentagon security when she was six. That 23 project wasn’t able to do that.”

“How do you know about the X-23 Project?”

“We have sources…”

The voices faded as Xii snarled. Moved from weapon to breeding factory. A producer of new, better weapons. She’d rather die. In fact, if they gave her that status, she’d kill herself. She’d slit her throat with her own claws rather than be a factory. So why was she waiting. It would be so easy. One swift movement and all her troubles would be over. One stroke…

The claws slid out. Hand moving slowly. Why move slowly? Just get it over with! She moved carefully, determined not to make the guards notice her. The first smooth metal tip touched her throat. One movement. That would be all it took. So promising. Just to die and never be hurt again…

She glanced round, to make sure that no one was watching. Her hand dropped down in shock. A woman’s face gazed out of the smooth metal wall, where Xii’s reflection should be. The face was covered on the right side, a mask of ice in a curious shape. It looked like a lizard, but no lizard had that carved intelligence. And the woman’s eye that was visible was sad. It was golden like Xii’s but the pupil was silver, with a coiled serpentine creature writhing. She tilted her head and smiled slightly. The sad smile of someone who cared for Xii. Xii raised her head, tried to reach out to the woman, but she was no longer there. How?

 

 

* * *

 

 

The woman recoiled in shock. The girl had seen her. She had responded. She could see through the Eye. Was she truly so powerful? Even then. Oh, how much hope Xii would have if she knew the truth. Her power was stronger than it seemed. Her physical mutation was only the weakest of her gifts. She had a great power deep down, a power she didn’t realize she had but had been using since she was a child.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Xii sat silently. The woman **had** been there. She was sure of it. She had been watching and had reached out when she was giving up. Perhaps someone did care… Perhaps, if she wanted to reach out again she would see her…

Questions, questions, always questions. But there was something to live for. She sat in silence, for days on end. She managed to get enough water, but by the end of the week there was no food left. It seemed like everyone had forgotten her. She was considering whether her teeth would halt her healing when, finally, the slot in the door slid open and the bowl of food slid in. She gave if a cursory sniff and then, happy that it wasn’t drugged she began to eat, swiftly, with the movements of one who had went without food often and knew starvation well. There was fear there as well. The collar hummed, almost in readiness. She couldn’t remove it. The hooks cut deep into her neck and the last attempt to cut it out had almost killed her. She finished and sniffed once more.

The Professor entered. He looked and smelt edgy. There was sorrow in his stance. Interesting. Suddenly she could read him like a book. There was another scent. One outside. One heavy, male and animalistic. The Professor opened his mouth.

“Weapon X-ii. Unfortunately, our funding has been removed. We have had to sell this facility. You are one of the experiments here and as such, you will remain. The new owner has promised that you will not be terminated but your training will continue or you may be released. Please meet your new master. Mr Creed, if you would come in…”

The man was tall. He had long blond hair and heavy gloves and clothes. There was a familiarity to the scent. Where had she smelt it before? It had been in a lesson. One of the scents she had been ordered to memorize. But the data banks were not responding. They often didn’t when her brain had been shut down. It would take a while for the connections to join and until then she had lost her perfect recall.

Come on, come on, work you stupid pieces of metal. You’re supposed to be useful. You’re the result of over two million dollars of research and you don’t work when I need you to.

The man, Creed, walked over to her and pulled her head back, pressing his fingers in the corners of her mouth, forcing it open. He gave her sharp canines a cursory glance and removed his hand, causing her head to drop in pain. He seized her wrist and twisted it until her claws slid out of her knuckles and she screamed in pain. He smiled slightly and walked out, murmuring as he did so.

“I’ll buy everything.”

The Professor looked at her, fear in his eyes. There was something else, a feeling that he cared about her. As if! He hated her. They all did. The scars on her back were proof of that. They still cracked when she moved but if she kept still there wasn’t too much pain. She’d got used to there always being pain. She’d learned to live on it. Pain kept her sustained when food couldn’t. She controlled the pain, as it controlled her. In a way, she was pain, pure animal pain. It defined her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The woman once more relaxed, breaking contact with Xii. The pain had reached a point where it had been interfering with the memories. So many memories. So much knowledge still unused. Perhaps this had been a bad idea. Gazing into the past simply stirred up old fears and sorrows. But she had started this and she had to end it. She didn’t know why she decided to read Xii’s life like this. Perhaps… But no, she wouldn’t be so child-like as to want to relive that. She was rambling again. Back to the subject. Back to the Eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Memories was initially posted on fanfiction.net in 2011. Since then, I decided to rewrite and repost it. At the same time, I thought I'd post it here as well.
> 
> Suma99


	3. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What price is there on your beliefs? At what point do you just want to curl up and die? How much can a tortured soul cope with?

Xii was afraid. She had been sad before, wary and nervous. But never afraid. Never all-consuming fear. The scent had been remembered. Mr Creed. Sabretooth. How had he got the money to buy this place?  Her fingers slid round to her back, over the scar tissue on her right shoulder that ran down to her left hip. Then to her left shoulder. The blood ran fresh there. Creed…Sabretooth had laughed as he had ripped the partially healed scar open. He derived pleasure from her pain. He fed her when the whim came to him and he only touched her to tear open the scar or to make her fight him, using the old combat rooms. The fights always ended the same way. She couldn’t chikt her claws through the adamantium gloves and starvation blunted her abilities. She always ended up being thrown back into her cage…not a room anymore, but a cage, with one of the scars torn open. They healed. But the scar tissue didn’t. That confused her. Perhaps the blades were more than her heal-halter. They had taken the blades. That and some of the more usable equipment. Otherwise, she had been left. Left to a murderer.

 

* * *

 

 

The woman sighed. Creed was brutal. His book was a testament to that. She had seen it once. Written on animal skins, with blood for ink. He was primitive in methods, but not in thoughts. That was his strength. And Xii. The girl who had no book. An impossibility to be sure, but every rule had its exceptions. And the books were really just a form of telepathic recording. If you couldn’t reach into the mind, the book couldn’t be written. Actually, that was a lie. She did have a book. A huge book. Several volumes. Volume One slid off the pile nearby and rushed to the woman’s hand. The pages were blank. Blank, blank, blank. It took a while for you to realize there **were** words on the page. They were faint and could only be seen from a certain angle. So interesting. Such contradictions. Such a child. So dangerous and so delicate. And the figure standing over her in the pool. Here too was a man of mystery. But not as great as the girl. The book lay there next to her. If she removed more from the Archives, the Heart would collapse, leaving only the Sceptre. She waved a hand and all the books other than Xii’s rose and moved, held on streams of water. At the final book floated away, it bobbed and the title became visible.

ROMULUS

 

* * *

 

 

The girl sat in the cage, chains holding her arms behind her back and the collar wrenching her head back. Sabretooth was watching as a shadowy figure stepped out from behind a pillar. He glanced at her.

“She is not Lupine.”

“But sir…”

“At the most, her mutation is feline. She is not Lupine.”

“Of course…sir.”

Sir! Creed called someone sir! And he stank of fear and sweat. Whoever this was, Creed feared him. That was good and bad. Anyone Creed feared was dangerous. But it was good to see Creed grovel, as he made her grovel. Somewhere deep inside she still had pride and strength. She’d suffered four years of this. And she had never once struck back, never once tried to gain revenge. Words from the guard who had cared still resonated.

“Hate weakens you. Revenge steals your life. Forgive but do not forget. When somebody injures you, offer up the other cheek to humiliate them. Most people don’t realize but the expression, turn the other cheek comes from the rule you could slap slaves. Backhand was reserved for equals. By turning the other cheek, you forced them to acknowledge you as an equal. All the pieces in that passage are like that. All keep your self-respect. Remember that Xii. You don’t have to be what they want you to be.”

“I will remember. I remember. I…I…I can’t forgive. But I can try…”

She saw his face. Worried. He hadn’t meant to be here. It had been an admin accident. But he had seen the pain she was in and had decided to stay. On his shifts she could drop her guard. The chains would be loosened and she could listen to him talk. Sometimes he had played music. She still recalled him singing in a pure voice the words to that song. He had laughed when she had attempted to join in and sounded terrible. She had given up hopes of ever learning to sing. She couldn’t carry a tune and it was too late for her to learn. He had given her a chance. Kept her sane. And she didn’t even know his name…

 

* * *

 

 

How often things like that happen. The woman smiled sadly. Another book she couldn’t find. What was the point of the Library if you couldn’t find the book you were looking for? For goodness sake, every piece of knowledge in the universe was stored here and she couldn’t find the thing she wanted to. How typical. Of course she could simply recalibrate the Eye to follow the guard but that would be cheating. She had a better idea. Ice groaned and creaked as water swirled, forming a face. The guard. The water sparkled and shone and gradually settled, leaving a face carved in ice. A tribute to kindness


	4. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you ever save someone from themself?

Six years. Six years of living hell. Ever since the others had left and she had been left to Creed’s less than tender mercies, Xii had learned to black out the world. It was easier just to give in. Then he’d tire of hurting her and throw her away. The more she fought, the more enjoyment he got. So she didn’t. She just stood silently, refusing to raise a hand to defend herself. And so he simply tore open her back again and pushed her back into the cage. It hurt, but she’d learned early on he could hurt her worse than that. The beating had left her unable to move for a day even with her fast healing. She hadn’t given up though. In her mind, she fought back and beat him, holding her claws under his throat and then…then she didn’t know what. Her imagination couldn’t stretch far enough to imagine killing him. One day though…One day…she’d find out. And she couldn’t wait.

 

* * *

 

 

The woman laughed. One day. Next day more like. Finally Xii would learn. Learn the things a child knew. And maybe forget the things no child should. Was Xii a child? She was…how old? Twenty? So much older in many respects. So much younger in others. This would be interesting. Perhaps to switch perspectives? Who to choose? Ah, yes… Herr Wagner…

 

* * *

 

 

“Elf, we ain’t got much time.”

Kurt sighed. He didn’t see why there was so much fuss about this. Apparently Wolverine…Logan…had been told there was something important deep in the Northern Rockies. What it was exactly was…well…unclear. Logan acted like he knew what he was doing but when Kurt had asked him, out of the range of the other X-Men what they were going up against, he had shrugged.

“Not a clue. Can’t remember anything from then. All I know, it’s to do with my past. And that’s all I care about.”

Frankly, it was amazing he had managed to persuade the others to come. Kurt had always been for coming. Peter hadn’t taken much persuading. It was the Professor and Cyclops that had been difficult to persuade. Somehow Logan had managed it. He’d got the Professor to do the mind-reading thing and after a hurried conference with Cyclops the X-Men had been given the green light to go. There had been that slight problem with Kitty wanting to come but hopefully this time they’d left her behind. They’d made sure to check to storage locker this time. The Blackbird was nearing its destination. Through all the snow and earth, a glimmer of metal. There. Was that what they were looking for? It looked small. Insignificant. As they prepared to touch down, Kurt couldn’t help but wonder…

“What have we gotten ourselves into?”

 

* * *

 

 

The place was deserted. The corridors were silent. It was like someone had just said a word and everyone had upped sticks and left. The equipment they had left behind… Some of it was more advanced than the stuff back home. Who were these people? Kurt shivered and hurried over to talk to Logan.

“This place is empty. Whatever you’re looking for mein Freund, it is not here.”

“That’s what you think. There’s a scent. It’s faint. Can’t quite pick it up. But it’s there.”

“Do you know where we are?”

“Haven’t got a clue. Whatever this place is, it ain’t where I was. Stop. Got it. There’s a woman here. Smells like she’s in a bad way. It stinks of blood.”

Wolverine sped up, causing the other X-Men to run after him. How could someone so short go so fast? What was there that was so important anyway. Finally, after what felt like miles of winding tunnels (this complex must be huge); they reached a pair of huge doors. Wolverine was already cutting out a gap to allow them through. The doors fell in on themselves and Kurt staggered as the stench hit him. The walls were covered in gore. A massacre had obviously taken place there. And at the opposite end of the long room was a cage. There was a figure there, but whoever it was appeared to have collapsed. There was a chain holding his head up. As they got closer Nightcrawler gasped

“Is that a…a child?”

The figure looked up. Fierce golden eyes glared out of a grubby and blood-stained face. Rough, filthy hair framed a face that was obviously that of a young woman. But the eyes that burned and accused were like Logan’s only deeper. Someone who had suffered and screamed and in the end given up. Storm moved closer, reaching for the cage door only to withdraw her hand as the woman within snarled and snapped, revealing sharp canines.

“Ororo, for all we know, this woman might be responsible for this…massacre. I don’t think you should…”

“Scott, this is a child. She is scared. Let her be.”

As the others bickered about the girl, Kurt watched as Logan crouched down, so his eyes were level with the girl’s. They sat there for a while, just looking at each other. Wolverine spoke first.

“I reckon you’ll understand me. It hurts doesn’t it? I guess you’re like me ‘cos they put you in an adamantium cage…”

Gradually the others noticed what he was doing and turned to listen. The words soon dropped into the background. It was simply the tone that mattered. The way you talked to a spooked animal. The girl never broke eye contact with Wolverine, just stared at him, gaze never wavering from his face. Finally she spoke.

“Please…get me out… I can’t stay here any longer…He will return soon. Please.”

Kurt shuddered. Who was the “he” she referred to with great fear? Storm began the slow job of picking the lock as the others took turns to keep watch. The girl…so hard to think of her as a woman…moving restlessly. She seemed unable to remain still, so unlike the corpse-like figure they had seen when they first entered. She was odd. There was something about the unblinking eyes that scared him. It wasn’t the feline pupils, or the unnatural golden colour. No he was fine with that. It was the look of years in her eyes. The same look that Logan had, only the outer layer had none of the steel. But look further and you saw the metal, unbreakable. The eyes of someone guarded and dangerous. Someone who could kill with the flick of a hand. Yet someone who wouldn’t. He gave up trying to read her eyes. There was no point.

The door swung open and with a swift tug, Colossus broke through the chains. She collapsed. Peter passed her out and Kurt felt how thin she was under the loose once-white robe. Storm offered her an arm but the girl pushed it away, managing to stand. She swayed slightly but then steadied herself. There was a strength there. She refused all help other than what she obviously needed. She began to walk away, towards the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not going to hurt you. Everything I touch dies. That or it hurts me. He’ll be back soon. I have to run. Have to get away. Have to escape. Have to be free. Never been free before. Wonder what it is like to be free.”

Wolverine was there first.

“Kid, you’re a walking corpse. We’ll get you out of here. Don’t worry, we’ll look after you.”

The girl withdrew, fear in her eyes as a figure rose up out of the darkness and thrust a clawed hand through Wolverine’s chest. The girl screamed, her hands bunching into fists. A blond man stepped out of the shadows. Was it a man? There was the look of an animal about him.

“Now, now little one. We can’t have you escaping can we? Oh dear, this will lead to punishment. After I’ve dealt with your would-be rescuers.”

The girl snarled and dropped into a low combat stance, smooth metal sliding out of her hands.

Oh no, not another one! There are enough mad lunatics with claws.

She launched herself at the man. There were no threats, no posturing. She simply flung herself into the fight like she was born fighting. The fight was no place for anyone else. It was the fight between animals, only one was cheating and the other was cheating even more. The girl had the upper hand. Claw marks on the man didn’t heal while all the injuries he gave her simply healed. Suddenly, with a fierce roundhouse kick, the man was down and the girl rammed her claws under his throat. As they watched she seemed to falter as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to ram the lethal looking claws into the man’s brain. The man sensed his opponent’s weakness and flung her the length of the room, where she crashed into a wall and slumped to the floor. In a second, all hell had broken lose. Something the girl had hit had caused the room to go insane. Lasers burst; pile drivers came crashing towards them. It was like the Danger Room only even more intense. A movement wrong could result in death. A very, very painful death.

 

* * *

 

 

The woman watched as unnoticed Creed slipped away. Now she would go back to Xii’s perspective. After all it was her she was interested in, not Nightcrawler, as endearing as he was.

 

* * *

 

 

The blackness cleared and Xii looked up. The short man was bending over her and she panicked. She swung her fist in an arc, managing to connect before realizing it wasn’t Creed. She tried to apologize but the man waved away her feeble attempts. One of the others, the metalman, offered her a hand up but she managed to pull herself up, before collapsing again. This time the blue man with the brimstone scent caught her and pulled her up. The man in blue with the odd glasses came up and looked in her face.

“Was he responsible for this?”

“Yes. He tore and hurt. Kept hurting. Wouldn’t stop. Blood’s mine. All mine.”

“All this?”

“Mine. Mine, mine, mine. Tore and hurt and wouldn’t stop. Kept hurting. Wouldn’t fight back. Refused. Be strong. I humiliated him by refusing to fight.”

Suddenly what she had been saying clicked in her head.

“My apologies. I think the force at which I was thrown must have scrambled my language banks.”

“Come again.”

“My language banks translate for me and give me fluency in many tongues. It is a most useful skill to have. Now if one of you would be so kind as to show me the exit.”

The people like her glanced at one another and she knew they were going to refuse.

“Please…”

The short man with the scent she knew she should know but frankly couldn’t care less about was the only one who tried to talk.

“Kid…”

“I am not a child. I am an adult. I think I’m twenty. I don’t really know. It’s hard to keep count. Let’s say I’m definitely twenty plus.”

“Okay, okay. Listen, you’re half-starved and you’re having trouble standing up. It’s mid-winter out there. No way will you survive.”

“I did before. And I didn’t have my powers then.”

“Look. You can come with us. We won’t hurt you. We all were hurt. I know what you’ve gone through…”

“How? You don’t know what I am.”

The man didn’t speak. Instead, he bunched up his hands and smooth metal claws snikted into position. Xii curled her hands into fists and allowed her claws to chikt out. She held them up to his. They were smaller, lighter. They looked spindly compared to his. She moved quickly, claws flying at his. His claws stopped hers. Adamantium. His eyes didn’t leave hers.

“See. I know. We all have suffered. Some more than others. Will you come with us?”

She couldn’t refuse. How could she? Another sufferer. Someone like her. Someone who knew the never-ending, never-ceasing pain of metal in his bones.

“I…I will come. But I cannot stay for long.”

 

* * *

 

 

The woman laughed at that. “Cannot stay for long.” Brilliant. Of course, with Xii’s lifespan she didn’t actually spend that long with the X-Men. But she stayed longer than she anticipated. They all did in the end. That was the magic Xavier had created. Speaking of Xavier…

 

* * *

 

 

Xii stepped out of the plane…the Blackbird, the blue one-Nightcrawler had called it. A girl came running up but faltered when she saw Xii.

“Storm…who is this?”

The woman turned to look at Xii.

“Who are you? We do not even know your name.”

“They called me X-ii. I think of myself as Xii. It’s the closest thing I have to a name.”

She realized instantly that she had said was somehow wrong. The others spluttered and looked shocked. The girl was the first to speak.

“You don’t have a name? Well I’m called Kitty and this is Scott, Ororo, Peter, Logan and Kurt. I’ll take you to meet the Professor. You have heard of the Professor haven’t you? Charles Xavier?”

“I am sorry…Kitty. I…I have heard of Professor Xavier but only in passing. Professor Robson called him one of the great minds of the day.”

As the girl reached out a hand to Xii, she felt a sharp stab of pain. She was like Eva on that first day. So open. So trusting. She’d be hurt. And hurt badly. Xii shuddered. What danger had she put these people in?

The girl pulled her along a tunnel until they surfaced in a house. A man in a wheelchair appeared. He smiled at the girl…Kitty…must remember to call her Kitty. He looked at Xii as well and smiled. Not the smile of the people she was used to. This man seemed genuinely pleased to see her. She tried to smile in return but was panicking inside. Where was the famed Professor Xavier? There were no more people in the house and Professors were tall and angry and spoke loudly.

“Greetings Xii. My name is Charles Xavier. I hope you will see my home as yours during your stay here. Scott has filled me in on your situation. Perhaps Ororo could take you upstairs and find you some new clothes while you clean up?”

No, No, No! This was all wrong! Professors weren’t soft-spoken and kind! Especially not one with a reputation like Xavier’s. But there he was, treating Xii like a person… like an equal. He was the third. Second really. The other…Wolverine didn’t count. They were the same. But the other X-Men had been wary around her. Not that she blamed them. She was dangerous. She knew that. Wolverine knew that. But did the others? They thought they did but in reality they hadn’t got a clue. The sooner she could get away from here the better.

 

* * *

 

 

Yes. Yes, Xii was dangerous. But only to herself. That’s what she couldn’t grasp. Alone for all those years she had decided that she would never look another human in the face again. Never care about someone again. And that had changed as she made excuses for her decision, as she tried to persuade herself to remain detached. The woman sat silent and still for a second…or was it for an eternity. Time has no meaning here. There is no then and now, no future. But time still happens. People create time. The woman decided that time was a useful thing. She didn’t like running into versions of herself that she knew more than or they knew more than her. So she tried to keep the second going on forever. Her second. Her gift and her curse. She was living the same second again and again, it’s just each time round she did something different. How boring. That’s why she spent her second watching Xii. So interesting. So full of life. So much history. When you’re bored stiff, you want to watch something long but with lots of action. Pretty much summed up Xii.

 

* * *

 

 

Xii looked over the clothes that Storm…Ororo…had pushed through the door. Why so many? All different colours. How did you choose?  She was tired and hungry and the warm water hadn’t helped. She’d never realized water could feel so good. They used to turn a cold hose on her when she got too dirty. It had never occurred to her you could use hot water and that sweet smelling stuff. Actually, she’d probably used too much of that fat-based product. But she’d wanted to get rid of all of the scent of that place. She’d used so much she no longer smelt of blood and gore and Creed. That was good in her eyes. Finally she grabbed some of the darker clothes that looked like they wouldn’t drown her and covered the worst of her cuts that were still in the process of healing. When she stepped out Ororo gave her an odd look but passed no comment on her choice of clothing. Xii knew she had probably made some error but she really wasn’t that bothered about clothes. A smell was permeating the house. Something sweet and sharp and mouth-watering. Food. When had she last eaten? Four, five days ago at least. Storm led her to a room where the scents were stronger. She was having trouble not leaping for the food they placed in front of her.

“Calm. Calm. You’ve gone for longer without food. Much, much longer.”

Unbidden she remembered the day she realized she couldn’t count on Creed bringing food and she’d been forced to reached out of the cage and scoop up the only source of food nearby. She had been sick, retched and retched until there was no more food to bring up, but for a short time she’d not been hungry so had to eat more. Cyclops…what had Kitty called him? Oh, yes…Scott glanced at her.

“You’re starving. We can all see that. Eat.”

Xii gave the bowl a cursory sniff, more out of habit than anything else before attacking the food with gusto. Gradually she slowed, realizing that the food she was being given was better than anything else. The scents and tastes melded. She noticed the other smiling, withholding laughter. When had she last laughed? Not since Eva died. Was it really eight years since she had last laughed? Was it six years since they had left her? The dates matched up. She hadn’t been certain in the facility. Days blurred. Lights were on all the time. It threw her body clock off. At the moment, her body thought it was night and registered surprise at it being evening. Finally she finished and Kitty pushed another bowl in front of her. Xii pushed it away.

“I thought you were hungry.”

“Too much rich food after starvation causes sickness. I haven’t had a proper meal for many years. Just what Sabretooth gave me and …what I could reach when he withheld food.”

All the people paled as they realized what she had been forced to eat. Xavier and Kitty had obviously been filled in on the room she had been in. All paled. Except Wolverine.

“Sensible.”

She glanced at him, not long enough to be perceived as a threat but long enough for her to get a good look. He was about an inch shorter than her. His hair looked wild. He smelt like Creed. But not. It was complicated. He smelt like her. But not. So confusing. And he stank of ethanol and barley. Some of the guards had smelt of that. They were the ones who were callous. She glanced over again and saw the slight smile that made it obvious he’d realized what she was doing and thought it funny. And she couldn’t help but notice he’d been doing the same. The others had all stared. He’d just glanced. And he’d noticed more than the rest put together. She wanted to laugh. So she did. She’d forgotten how good it felt to laugh. How it felt to get your feelings out. The others looked at each other hurriedly and Xii realized she’d come across as happy to have been forced to eat…what she’d had to.

“Sorry. Had a funny thought. I wasn’t always…as you saw me. I used to laugh and smile. But I lost something. I lost the power to smile and instead got my other…gifts.”

The Professor exchanged a glance with the others.

“The others have told me about your fight. I am interested in your ability and would like you to stay here permanently. And also I would like to give you the opportunity to explore your powers fully…”

There it was. He wanted her as an experiment. She tensed, ready to run and keep running. The only ones who could keep up with her would be Nightcrawler- Kurt and Ororo. And she could probably beat them in one-on-one. Her eyes flickered around, gauging distances. Finally, like a coiled spring she leapt, managing to slip between Peter and Scott and out of the door. She ran and ran, along the corridors and caught a breeze. Follow it. Sooner I’m out of here the better. She reached the door then stopped. No one had followed her. If they wanted to keep her, wouldn’t they follow? She hesitated then walked out the door.

Then turned and walked to the kitchen window and listened. Wolverine was arguing with the Professor.

“Chuck, that kid’s spent her whole life by with people being interested in her. She heard you talking about her power and panicked. If I go, I can talk to her. She’s scared stiff. All of this is new to her. And she’s been in Sabretooth’s hands for who knows how long. That man’s a lunatic.”

“Logan, I wish you would tell me your relationship with this man.”

“We don’t have one! He hates me, I hate him. End of.”

Logan…was that his name…she hadn’t quite caught it…marched out. She watched the others argue. Some- Scott in particular- were all in favour of allowing her to leave. Ororo and Kurt were saying she shouldn’t be allowed out. She wouldn’t be able to cope. She was so absorbed in hearing what they were saying about her she didn’t hear him sneaking up on her.

“Hey.”

She turned, claws already out and swiped, only to be stopped by his. She relaxed. She felt…somehow…secure near him. Mainly because he was like her. He knew all the pain. And he’d realized what she had been doing and thought it was funny. Just like she did.

“What did he mean?”

“Charles wants you to join the X-Men. Be one of us. We can help you. He helped me. Helped me sort through all the fear and pain.”

“I’m too dangerous. I shouldn’t be here. I endanger people.”

“Don’t think you’re as bad as me. Number of times I’ve almost killed someone I shouldn’t.”

She glanced up. Questions burning.

“You’re like me. Who did it to you?”

“Government. Same as you I assume?”

“I think so. But there was someone paying for me. Don’t know who it was. If I meet him again I’ll recognize his scent. Aside from that…”

“Will you come back in? It’s cold.”

“I don’t feel the cold.”

“Neither do I. Don’t tell the others, they’ll just be jealous.”

Smiling slightly, Xii followed Wolverine back into the warm house.

 

* * *

 

 The woman smiled. The first time Xii followed Logan. Definitely not the last. They would become close as time went on. Shared suffering did that. They’d all suffered the same. Of course, the others became friends. But Logan was the one she trusted first.

 

* * *

 

 

The X-Men looked in surprise as she stepped back into the kitchen. Wolverine grinned slightly.

“Told ya I could bring her back Chuck.”

“Where were you Xii?”

“Just outside the window.”

“Oh.”

That was it. No asking for an explanation. Just accepting she needed to have time on her own. That was new. She tried to smile. Kitty looked edgy.

“Sorry, Xii. But don’t you have a **real** name.”

“If I do I don’t remember.”

“It’s just I don’t feel right calling you Xii. It’s like a nickname but you haven’t got a name.”

“I wouldn’t know what to call myself.”

“How ‘bout Tora? Japanese name meaning tiger. Goes with your hair.”

She turned and looked at Wolverine…Logan, curiosity burning.

“Why that name?”

“Came to me in a flash of inspiration.”

Xavier looked at him oddly but then smiled.

“You will need a Christian name and surname if we are to get you identification. It’s almost impossible to live these days without some sort of licence.”

“In that case, I’ll go with Tora. It’s better than the name they wanted to give me.”

“Which was?”

“Emilè Robson. The Professor was Emil…”

“Ah. He named you after himself.”

“Yes. I don’t want that name.”

“Understandable.”

She sat quietly. Thinking the name over and over. Tora. Tora. It sounded odd. She liked the way the syllables meshed together. Funny. She’d never assumed she could have a name. It was just one of those things about her. Suddenly she was aware she was exhausted. That fight with Sabretooth had taken a lot out of her and she’d been weak to begin with. Followed by a meal and warm water, she was now half asleep. She wouldn’t help the yawn slipping out of her mouth. Xavier looked at here in worry.

“I am sorry…Tora. I didn’t realize you were so tired. I will have Ororo take you to a room.”

“Thank you. I don’t know how to repay you…”

“There is no need. If you were to try and gain money, you would be unable to cope.”

“I don’t want to be a problem.”

“I would give all mutants a home here if I could. You have no home and I feel you deserve some luck after what has happened to you. If it is anything like Logan’s experience, I cannot doubt you have suffered greatly.”

Wolverine shifted slightly at that.

“Professor. I think it’s worse than you assume. All the signs there were that she’d been there for most of her life. I have some memories of before it all, but the files she went through went back eighteen years.”

Xavier gave her a sharp look.

“You went through files? Why?”

“I hoped they would contain information about before. All I remember before they gave me the knowledge was a single word. I don’t remember anything about life. Just a word that I think I kept repeating. In French. …Maman. I think I wanted my mother and was so afraid that word burned into my brain. Without I wouldn’t have a clue what language I originally spoke. I can think in English, French, Spanish and Japanese but the other languages I speak fluently I am conscious of them being translated for me.”

“Thank you. I realize you have spent a long time alone and your honesty is refreshing.”

“Honesty? You asked me a question and I answered. I do not understand the word honesty.”

“Honesty is telling the truth.”

“There is only truth. Truth and mistakes. Truths and misinterpretations. So why are you so surprised? I know my own mind.”

“Do you have a concept of dishonesty?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you know about lies?”

“No. I do not know the word. What are they?”

“Imagine I said something that was mistaken. But I knew the information was mistaken. That is a lie.”

“There is only truth and mistakes. No one says a mistake when they know the truth. It just doesn’t happen.”

“It does Tora. It does.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons. Fear, hatred. People lie because they want to cover up their mistakes.”

She looked shocked at that. Could someone not be mistaken but telling untruths? Would someone do that? A face flashed to the forefront of her mind. Yes. Yes they would. Perhaps things would be easier running free. The breeze outside. The scents to follow. The promise of running wild and free. But these people had offered her sanctuary. Things had been easier back at the facility. But these people seemed willing to allow her to stay. And the idea of being with people like her and Eva appealed. She nodded slightly.

“You have given me much to think about.”

“As you have me.”

She turned let Ororo lead her out of the kitchen upstairs. She knew that the eyes followed her up the stairs but she tried to ignore them. Every instinct caused her panic. She knew deep down this wasn’t how she was meant to live. Nor was the facility. She was meant to run free. No walls. No barriers. Just her and the wind and rain and sun. She shook her head, dispelling the thoughts. She wasn’t thinking clearly. But the breeze from outside had been so promising.

“I don’t have to stay here. I can leave whenever I want.”

She closed her eyes and allowed her other senses to guide her movements. While Ororo’s scent gave her the general direction, the noises she made gave her an idea of obstacles. And the movements in the air as she passed gave her an indication of speed. It was good to see she could still function without sight.

She sense Storm stop and halted. Eyes now open, she saw her open a door.

“This is the room. I hope you like it.”

Her first impression was of space. Then of objects. Things she had never seen but knew the names of. Large windows overlooking a wood. A door leading to a balcony. A good place to hide a snip… Oh for goodness sake. Couldn’t those stupid chips be quiet for once? Now they had started they wouldn’t stop, noticing every piece of furniture and turning it into a weapon. She must have shown her discomfort because Storm was there.

“Are you alright?”

“I am fine.”

“The door there leads to a bathroom.”

“Thank you.”

She stood quietly, waiting to be left alone to her own thoughts. Ororo took the hint and left, shutting the door behind her. Finally alone, she relaxed, dropping her guard enough to allow herself to breath easily. She compared the room with the cell she had shared with Eva. It had at least double the space. Instead of the two narrow pull-down sheets of metal, there was a large bed in the centre. A glance told her all she needed to know. She walked over to the balcony door and opened it. As the breeze filled the room she lowered herself to the floor beside the bed and curled into a ball. The scents wafted into the room and the low murmur of voices downstairs slowly lulled the woman who now thought of herself as Tora to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

The woman smiled. Already she was dropping her guard. The X-Men knew how to make someone feel comfortable. But old habits die hard.


	5. Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is freedom anyway?

She woke. There was water coming in from the open doors. It was raining. She closed them and sighed. She glanced at the clock on the table beside the bed. She’d got enough sleep to feel healthy. She’d never needed much. And she always felt more awake at night anyway. It sounded like everyone else was asleep. Everyone? No. There were voices downstairs. Quiet. Confidential. And only two. Kitty was along the corridor and Ororo had walked away from the stairs recently and not gone back down. Curiosity piqued, she opened the door. The corridor was dark but her pupils, normally oval, widened until the irises were no longer visible. She could see the outlines of the corridor and more. She’d realized it was special when Eva couldn’t see the colours. She’d obviously had that gift before hand. She could see the sleeping form of Kitty through the wall, in reds that weren’t red. As she’d grown older she’d realized she could see into infrared. It was useful. Not very far in but enough to allow her to see objects that radiated heat. She couldn’t really tell how warm an object was but it was useful. Anything with a temperature difference of about 10°C showed in different shades. And the rooms had a temperature of about 20. It wasn’t a big difference, but if you could see a rabbit in the heather, you could tell the difference between two shades of not-quite-red. She moved silently, on the balls of her feet. If you knew how, you could move more softly than a cat. And with more grace. With that she eased herself onto the banister. The empty space to the bottom of the house gaped below her. She stepped into the void.

As she fell, she twisted in the air, braced herself and landed lightly on her feet. It had been a while since she’d tried that trick. She had to stop herself from laughing. She remembered the bruises she’d gained learning how a cat twisted in the air and then the work that had gone into landing silently. It had been her coup d’grace and she knew it. Then she remembered why she had come downstairs. She sniffed the air. They were in the living room. Scott and Xavier. Once more she became one with the shadows. The words were there. She listened intently.

“What do you mean, you couldn’t read her?” Scott. He sounded annoyed.

“I mean, Cyclops, that she has shields unlike any I have seen before.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have encountered two types. The first type I have placed the X-Men’s heads. A telepath can still sense you are there, but not your thoughts. The second is completely hidden. The astral plane is uninterrupted. Unless I physically meet the person, I do not know they are there.”

“And this Tora?”

“At first I took her to be one of the second type. I couldn’t see her at all. And then I found it.”

“What?”

“With her, there is a tear in the plane. Absorbing. So miniscule I didn’t notice at first. But there is a hole in the universe and it’s in her mind.”

“What!”

“I don’t know Scott. It could simply be those digital chips she mentioned. Or it could be a natural mutation. Either way, this is something new.”

“Logan thinks so too. He said she’s different from him. I think he likened her scent to that of a cat. It was either a lynx or an ocelot. One or the other.”

“Yes. I got the scents from him.”

She had heard enough. It was all she could do to stop herself from confronting them. And the words sunk in. Xavier was a mutant. And more than that. He was a telepath. He could read minds. He’d obviously been trying to read hers and couldn’t. Well that was his problem. She wasn’t going to listen to them talk about her anymore. She recalled the steps that creaked as she walked upstairs. When she reached the second landing, she froze. There was someone there. Watching. For how long?

“Impressive jump.”

Wolverine. Somehow she thought he wouldn’t tell the others about this.

“I heard them talking.”

“`Bout you?”

“What do you think?”

She felt, rather than saw his grin.

“Give Scott space. He lost someone he cared a lot about recently.”

“How?”

“No one really knows. Her powers got out of control somehow. She spiralled into the darkness and couldn’t get out. In the end she died to stop herself from killing him.”

“What darkness?”

“You ever feel as though there’s something inside you, eating away at you?”

“…No. I am the thing that eats away at myself. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. That’s what it’s like for me. Don’t reckon anyone else would get that.”

She turned to go. There was no reason to hang around. She could feel his eyes burning on her back as she walked away and the beast sang within her.

There is someone like me. I am not alone anymore. Someone who understands.

 

* * *

 

 

There was nothing more than curiosity from the water. That and a faint hope for comradeship. Tora didn’t understand love. In all the languages she knew, not a single one had a version of that. Perhaps it would be interesting to see that confrontation from another angle…

 

* * *

 

Logan hadn’t heard her. He’d been preparing to go on one of his frequent nighttime walks when he’d happened to glance up and see her climbing up onto the railings. He’d withdrawn into the shadows and watched as she’d jumped. The grace with which she’d fallen and landed gave him an idea as to the differences in their “training”. He was the assassin, used when you needed mass slaughter. She was the spy, the one in the dark. While he was sent to do the messy jobs, she’d have been sent for the ones that needed to look like an accident or the ones brute-force couldn’t get at.

He’d heard Scott and Chuck talking and realized she must have overheard. Poor kid. She was just a kid. It was like that time with Kitty and the Brotherhood only opposite. She had the body of a woman but she moved, talked, smelt like a child. But it wasn’t because of time changes. This was because a kid had been messed with. She was more weapon than warrior. He still couldn’t quite believe what he had seen. She’d hit out at Sabretooth. Cut him and hurt him. But he hadn’t healed. She had taken every one of his hits and he’d bled from hers. He’d still been bleeding when he’d run. All the fights he’d had with Creed and neither of them were ever permanently injured. But this girl was different. She was coming back upstairs and he shrank into the shadows. She stopped. Sniffed the air and Logan cursed. Course she’d be able to smell him. Well he might as well talk. He cast around for something to say.

“Impressive jump.”

He watched as tension slid out of her. She turned towards him

“I heard them talking.”

“`Bout you?”

“What do you think?”

He grinned. Then was serious.

“Give Scott space. He lost someone he cared a lot about recently.”

“How?”

“No one really knows. Her powers got out of control somehow. She spiralled into the darkness and couldn’t get out. In the end she died to stop herself from killing him.”

“What darkness?”

“You ever feel as though there’s something inside you, eating away at you?”

“…No. I am the thing that eats away at myself. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. That’s what it’s like for me. Don’t reckon anyone else would get that.”

She turned to go. She was blunt and to the point. She wasn’t the sort to waste words. A loner. And something sounded within him.

There is someone like me. I am not alone anymore. Someone who understands.

 

* * *

 

She couldn’t help but smile as feeling of responsibility came rushing around her. He wanted to help the girl who hurt deep down. Which was really rather like him. Well, like he’d be shortly. Relatively speaking. Considering life-spans and so on. At the moment he was still throwing up walls around him. It would take a lot to pull them down.

  

* * *

 

 

The light woke her. Tora…that was her name now. She uncurled and stretched, wondering whether she would leave today. It would be hard to. Now she wasn’t alone. So many new scents. So many new words and colours and things to do and learn and see. She wanted to know so much. All she had learnt. It was only a fraction of all there was to know. And she wanted to know. She wanted to find out everything. But to begin with she’d find out all she could about the X-Men. She was good at finding out stuff. All it would take is ten minutes alone with a computer. She was good with computers. Computers did what they were told. They were easy to read. Not like people. Some of the X-Men were easy to read. They couldn’t hide their stance or scents. Others were better. The best was Wolverine. He kept deliberately changing stance, changing body language when she tried to read him. But to be fair, she was doing the same.

A tentative step out of the room. It was quiet. There was no one on this floor. They were all downstairs. She then had to decide the conventional route and the quick way. In the end she walked. It was easier to explain than dropping out of the sky. And she didn’t want to be asked questions. She wanted to be the one who asked them.

They looked up when she entered. Half of them smiled openly. The others tried to. But she could tell it wasn’t a real smile. Of course they were nervous around her. They knew less about her than anyone else they offered their home to. Xavier would simply read their mind for their intentions. But her…she was different. Unreadable and therefore a wildcard. An uncertainty. She liked the idea of being an uncertainty. She been so uncertain and now she was sure. It was everyone else who didn’t know. In a rare moment of thankfulness she smiled as she remembered the difficult times spent learning to read a persons body language. The teacher had been a curt old soldier. He’d spent hours drumming the knowledge into her. And when she’d finally managed to read him, through all the layers of subtle poses designed to confuse her he’d smiled slightly and never came back. But not before she’d overheard him talking to the Professor.

“Best pupil I ever taught.”

She’d felt so embarrassed. He’d never given her any hint he had been pleased at her. And she’d not seen it. She was good but she’d realized then he hadn’t taught her **all** his tricks. From then on, she’d watched her tutors carefully. Gradually, without any of them realizing it, she learnt to see what they didn’t tell her. Watched her fencing tutor and learnt how he always disarmed her. Watched her martial arts tutor and realized exactly where to apply pressure to cause your opponent to collapse. Noticed how the firearms master always used a gun with a slightly skewed barrel, to throw her shot off. They were all cheating and when she learnt their tricks she soon surpassed them. They’d all left, echoing the sentiment that her first teacher to leave had.

“Best pupil I ever taught.”

The words from around the table dragged her back to reality. She hadn’t realized they’d been calling her by her new name. The name she’d… rather embarrassingly… forgotten.

“Tora, are you alright?”

“I am just thinking. Remembering something I was once told.”

She noticed the worried glances between Scott and Xavier. If they had guessed… But they wouldn’t. Not unless Wolverine told them. Logan didn’t strike her as his real name. It was like hers. One name. The others all had two. But she only had one and so did he. But if he was like her… No. He’d lived outside. That much was clear. He spoke with slang, something she still couldn’t get her head around, no matter how often her teachers had tried to explain you sounded like a foreigner if you spoke with the proper grammar. She hadn’t got that. Why would people not speak properly? Once more she noticed they were all looking at her.

“I am sorry. I cannot help but remember my past.”

Once more, nervous glances. Logan was the only one that looked at her.

“I know it’s hard for ya to adjust. With me it took years. Still am if you want the truth.”

She shrugged. She didn’t really care about adjusting. All she had noticed was the fear when she had mentioned her past. She decided to make them uneasy.

“If you don’t want me to talk about it, I won’t. I heard it is hard to hear about another’s suffering.”

She hit home there. They looked guilty. She had read them all correctly. They feared her but they feared what had been done to her more. They couldn’t begin to comprehend her suffering so they tried to ignore it, pretend it hadn’t happened. There was nobody there who would begin to understand the pain. The hurt and beatings. Oh, they had told her on the flight here. Kurt had almost been beaten to death in Germany because of his appearance. But that had only been one time. It had been every single day. No reprieve. And the physical signs had faded, leaving only the memory and the nerves. For weeks after the first beating she’d flinched whenever a guard had moved too suddenly. She was dreaming again. Why couldn’t she stay in the present?

“We were planning to have a training session after breakfast. If you would like to watch, then we could see the extent of your mutation…if that is what you want.”

She shrugged again.

“I have a better idea. Do you have a computer anywhere?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I copied my files. I can give you the articles on my abilities.”

“I would prefer to see them myself. Where did you copy them too?”

“My head.”

Once more the nervous glances.

“I don’t forget anything. They saw to that. Every little detail I notice is recorded and placed on the chips.”

“How much memory do you have?”

“You mean how much backing storage. Memory isn’t that good. I don’t really know. I’ve never reached the upper limits. Oh, and would I be able to train? I haven’t had a proper training session since Creed took over six years ago. I did enjoy them.”

Logan…it was easier to give him a name, even if it wasn’t his real one, seemed worried about something.

“Six years with Creed. What did he do to you?”

So he definitely had a past with Sabretooth.

“Tried to make me fight him. When I wouldn’t he beat me and later cut. Once he’d hurt me he’d throw me back into the cage. Sometimes he’d forget to chain me. But once I’d been hurt, he’d forget about me.”

“Never anything other than beatings?”

“He used to say stuff that I didn’t understand but I got used to ignoring it.”

He didn’t exactly relax but his shoulders lost some of their tension. What else could Creed have done to her that made him so nervous?

  

* * *

 

 

Naïve. The girl without a clue in the world. Of course it wasn’t her fault. She had enough drugs to prevent her from gaining the unfortunate scent and Creed had kept them up, partially because it was easier to control her but mainly because the needles were so deadly looking. The poor woman would be in for a shock soon. She wasn’t really a woman. She was stuck at an earlier stage, drugs preventing her from developing. But it would be interesting to see how she reacted to the training.


	6. Adjusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can a conditioned weapon ever be a proper person?

She sat beside the Professor, watching them fight, working together to beat the room. It looked ludicrously simple. But perhaps that was part of the challenge. There would be a catch. And there it was. The razor wings leaving the wall. This was what she was meant to be doing. She looked over.

“You are fine with me training?”

He nodded, absorbed in his wards progress. Tora glanced down at the clothes he had offered her. It looked like the costume Kitty was wearing. Xavier had given it to her. She quietly went to change and prepare herself for the challenge. She realized she was looking forward to it.

_Is that what I have become? Someone who needs to fight to feel alive?_

But she hadn’t really been living. Never had. Never would. Not since… Stop it, stop it. Don’t think about that. You’ll just upset yourself. Concentrate. Once you’re in the room you’ll be fine… 

More than fine actually. She dodged and laughed. It was too easy. No lasers. No surprise attacks. Just a simple gauntlet. As she began to enjoy herself for the first time in years, the X-Men watched from above.

“Logan, this woman is almost as good as you.”

Wolverine just grunted in response, slightly annoyed that they were making assumptions already.

“Now that’s not fair,” he chided himself. “You were saying the same thing last night.”

It wasn’t the hardest setting but it wasn’t the easiest either. She…Was she **laughing**? Brilliant. They open their home to someone who gets a kick out of fighting. But then they realized she wasn’t trying to destroy the robot. She was dancing around it, dodging the blasts. No attack. Just defence and avoidance. Suddenly, as swiftly as she had been dodging, her claws were out and the robot collapsed. There was something about the sudden change. It was like she had been fighting in one style and when the robot had worked out that she had changed as quickly as she could. That was definitely a new one.

Scott was looking hard at her. He tried to decide what made it obvious she was a mutant. It wasn’t the black strip in the wild reddish-gold hair, a shade lighter than…no don’t think of Jean, or the golden eyes with the oval pupils. It wasn’t even the stare that bore into you or the way she scented the air every few seconds. It was more the overall look and body language. She had a look that reminded him of Logan. She was feral. But was this woman the same as they had taken out of the cage yesterday? She was too healthy. No one, not even Logan…well perhaps Logan…would be so full of life after starvation. Just as that thought passed through his mind she collapsed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Always overdoing things. The woman couldn’t help but laugh. Every single time in her life, Tora would do this. She’d be half starved or recovering from torture or just plain exhausted. And then she’d go and exert herself. Of course she took longer to tire. Could go for days. But she wasn’t indestructible. She was so child like when it came to this. She’d stick her hand in the flames and then think if she did it again it wouldn’t hurt. Of course she’d eventually learn. The important word in that sentence being eventually.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tora woke, the darkness clearing away. Stupid. Blacking out like that. She was still in the training room. It looked so **weak** collapsing. Kurt was leaning over her and she got up quickly before he could offer her a hand. She didn’t need help. She probably shouldn’t be straining herself so soon but if there was one thing she’d learned in Creed’s _care_ it was that she hated sitting still and not being able to get her angst out of her system. That and the fact Creed was a sadistic freak. But that wasn’t exactly top-secret information. What was wrong with her? Those statements weren’t like her at all. She could tell they wouldn’t allow her back in for a while. She might as well get those tests out of the way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She broke contact. Why was she doing this again? Oh yes. Boredom. She’d skip the tests. They were dull and Tora had considered all sorts of ways to liven things up. The only good point had been when Xavier tried to take a series of photographs as her claws extended and they had come up blank. She’d let him stew for a while before offering to switch off the digital scramblers. She’d heard the laughter as Kurt disappeared to tell the others that Xavier had been tricked.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It had been easier than she expected. He’d just wanted to take an X-Ray of her hands and had swabbed one of her claws at her own suggestion. He had also taken a blood sample but that had been it. While he had been waiting for the machines to produce the results he’d talked to her. Asked her about her abilities. And she couldn’t help herself. She’d told him about the way she saw reds that weren’t and about the colours of scent. She’d told him about moving in the darkness and the knowledge. Not just the stuff about languages and weapons that were intrusive. But how scents melded and air patterns shifted. How she could feel the slight rise in air pressure before the storm. She told him how she could hear a mouse moving in the wall three rooms away. She’d been about to go into how she could see the tiny scratch on the other side of the room when the machine had beeped. He’d reached over and pulled the printouts over.

“Now Tora, I’m going to tell you what they say and I want to see if you agree.”

“Yes Professor.”

“You have four telescopic claws stored in your metacarpals?”

“Yes.”

“The claws pass through the base of your proximal phalanx, where there is a gap in the bone.”

“Yes.”

“The claws are hollow and contain glands.”

“Yes.”

“The glands produce an enzyme that somehow secretes through the adamantium to coat your claws.”

“Yes.”

“The enzyme produced attacks the mutant healing factor preventing your fast healing.”

“Yes.”

“Does this only work on yourself?”

“No.”

“Thank you for clarifying that.” He moved onto the next sheet.

“You have high levels of hormones that increase your pain resistance and also speed up the rate of healing.”

“Yes.”

“We could probably go faster if you were more elaborate in your answers.”

“You told me to tell you if you agreed or not.”

“You don’t have to reply with monosyllables.”

She shrugged.

“Or with gestures. You said you could speak fluent English, Spanish, Japanese and French.”

“And lots of other languages. It’s just I can also think in those languages.”

She faltered, realizing she’d fallen into a trap.

“That was underhand Professor.”

“It worked in getting you to speak.”

“Can we continue?”

“Of course. You have extreme hormonal imbalance that I would not expect in a woman. Where you ever given drugs in some form that Sabretooth kept up.”

“Only one shot. I don’t know what it was but it was smelt like Creed and one of your X-Men. Logan.”

“Ah. In that case, I think a talk with Ororo may be in order.”

“Why?”

“I do not feel as if I should be the one to give you the talk.”

She didn’t press him. His smell told her he was embarrassed enough at the moment.

“Would you like to continue evaluating me? This is very interesting. Your methods are very different to the ones I am used to.”

He shifted in his chair, trying to find his place in the sheets before settling.

“You’re adapted to living in outdoor conditions.”

“I would not know. I have only been outside twice in my life. Once was yesterday.”

“However, while Logan is adapted for an Artic climate, I think you are adapted to a more temperate climate.”

“Would that give you an idea of where I came from?”

“Your adaptation seems to be for a climate with short mild summers and long middling winters.”

“Would that give me any insight into my past…my…family?”

“Unfortunately Tora I cannot say.”

“Thank you Professor. May I go now?”

He glances round and saw she was sitting deathly still. Very different from the numerous small movements she had been making through the entire questioning. The stillness of a cat just before it leaps. She obviously didn’t like talking. Or perhaps all she wanted was that last sentence. About her family.

“You may leave.”

She leapt up, the stillness evaporating as she dived towards the door.

“Tora!”

She stopped, frozen in mid-step. It would have been comical if he hadn’t realized she was terrified about the punishment she would receive if she hadn’t stopped.

“Perhaps Kitty can take you to get some clothes. You cannot live in the X-Men uniform and Ororo’s clothes are too large for you. You could also possibly get a haircut.”

She nodded then shot out of the door. He should have realized. This room was like the ones she was used to. She’d been trying to ignore it but she didn’t want to spend too long there. What had they done to this girl that made her so confused? At one moment she’d be confident and calm and the next she was a cowering wreck. He quickly contacted Storm and told her all she needed to do.  Let’s hope that she wouldn’t be too embarrassed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She was always going to be like that. Slowly, the nervous spells would decrease but it would always be there. The fear. Anything could trigger the paralysing attacks that left her like a rabbit in the headlights. But nothing would scare her more than what was to happen that afternoon.

 


	7. Choices

Kitty was sulking. If only she hadn’t looked so shocked at the choice of clothes she had picked out. But there wasn’t a chance she was wearing those clothes. She’d pulled her out of the shop and wandered the streets, catching scents, wanting to follow them up. Finally Kitty had seen sense and taken her into a shop where the clothes looked and smelt well made. The stitching was strong and there wasn’t one of those long skirts that she’d been wearing out of necessity in the shop. She’d felt bad about using Xavier’s money but he’d told her she couldn’t be expected to have any. She’d tried to explain she couldn’t repay the debt and once again he’d waved aside her objections. Tora had a moment’s panic when it came to actually buying the clothes but Kitty had been wonderful. She’d only started getting annoyed when Tora had started a low growl in her throat as a man had passed. Kitty had dragged her past but when she’d finally found a public toilet in which to yell at Tora, she was a wreck, shivering and scared.

“Know him. He’s one of them. One of the guards. He used to hurt me and laugh. He…he was the worst.”

Kitty had offered all sorts of help but Tora had brushed them off, fear making her curt. Kitty had taken offence and was now sulking. Tora hadn’t a clue on how to deal with her and they’d gone back to the mansion in silence. Only when she returned did she realize she was supposed to have had a haircut. Luckily, she didn’t need scissors. Sure, the fringe was a little wavy but at least her hair had a definite shape again. She’d just cut it straight across. Anything else and she’d risk a severed ear.  But at least there were some clothes that she wouldn’t trip over the skirts of. As if she’d wear a skirt.

 

* * *

 

 

That would remain the same. She’d never agree to wearing a skirt, dress or any other clothes that restricted her fighting ability. It was really rather amusing. The number of times she’d get in trouble for that. There was that charity event that Stark had wanted a mutant to give a talk on their rights and she’d turned up in her usual outfit. She’d been turned away three times before anyone realised that the woman in jeans and a long-sleeve shirt was the mutant lecturer.

 

* * *

 

Scott sat tense in the corner. Kitty had locked herself in her room after the shopping trip and Peter had spent the last half-hour trying to get her downstairs. And Tora was nowhere to be seen although Ororo had found her clothes neatly folded outside her door. When Peter had came down all he had to say was that Tora had seen an old guard in town and panicked, upsetting Kitty.

“It couldn’t have been a mistake, could it?”

“Nah. She’ll remember the scent of anyone who hurt her. That’s if they didn’t mess around with her memory like they did mine, but Chuck says they didn’t.”

“Would she panic if she saw them again?”

“Scott, just think about what you said. Would you panic if one of the men who tortured you when you were a kid and helped turn you into a weapon went past you in the street?”

“Excuse me.”

He turned and looked. She was standing quietly in the corner of the room…how had she got there? She’d managed to get her haircut and instead of the wild mane, there was an obvious fringe, straight across the forehead, shading the eyes. Her hair hung long and straight down over her shoulders. She sure looked better than she had in Ororo’s clothes. Skirts didn’t suit her. It was almost funny. She was wearing trousers and a checked shirt that looked as though they came out of Logan’s wardrobe. She wouldn’t…no the shirt was a woman’s.

“I am sorry about Kitty. I was…afraid and she offered to ring you but I snapped at her. And I told her I didn’t like the clothes she had picked out for me.”

Ah. Not the best of trips then.

 

* * *

 

 

She remembered that. The love-hate relationship with clothes shopping. She couldn’t spend more than ten minutes in a clothes shop before she got edgy and started looking for assassins in the kids section. But put her in a bookstore and she’d be there from dawn to dusk. That was one of the things that drew the woman to her. She would spend a week in pursuit of one small fact. In fact, she’d do all sorts of stupid things to prove a fact true. Hence two weeks into her stay with the X-Men…

 

* * *

 

 

…She was trying to prove to Kurt that just because he could teleport, he wasn’t as fast as her. That was the reason she was diving through the woods, speeding up, leaping over logs. If she could get to the mansion three seconds **under** her previous record then she had won. He wasn’t allowed to do it in under four jumps and she knew she could get there first if she wanted to. It just was annoying the snow slowed her down. She’d move faster if she didn’t have this stupid scarf getting in the way. Why was she wearing it anyway? Or the gloves? Or the hat? She didn’t feel the cold. Not the way the others did. OK then, she felt it but it didn’t **bother** her like it did Kitty and Scott. Logan was fine with it and ‘Ro didn’t feel differences in weather. She assumed that Peter must be acclimatised. Right, the scarf kept getting caught. She left it in the snow. She’d go back for it later. Claws cutting through the brush, she leapt out onto the lawn. Only a few hundred metres to go. Almost there. And suddenly she was hit between the shoulder blades. She turned, ready to fight only to see Kurt and Logan on the edge of the woods. Kurt had thrown some snow and as she watched, Logan threw his, hitting her full in the face. Laughing she scooped up some snow, but being uncertain, simply threw it as it was, so it flurried and swirled, not landing anywhere near either of the men.

“Elf, this ain’t a fair fight. Let’s say you versus us. Loser buys the beer.”

“Until she learns how, then it’s us versus her, _mein Freund_.”

“Sure, Elf.”

The fight was swift and unmerciful. As soon as she had been shown how to compact the snow to form a projectile, Logan switched sides and when Tora finally came in, race forgotten, she was soaked to the skin.

It was difficult to believe she was the same person. While she was still slight- the Professor explaining that the adamantium implantation had halted her growth- she was no longer painfully thin. She had lost the paleness of someone who never went outside and she no longer moved as warily. That talk with ‘Ro had come in handy as well. Why hadn’t the First Professor or any of the other staff told her about that? She’d come to like it here. The X-Men were friendly and open and they didn’t laugh when she made mistakes like when she assumed that the man who came to sell double-glazing was telling the truth about the insulation properties. It had taken a while to persuade the glazers that they didn’t want every window in the manor downgraded to double-glazing from triple glazing.

But a few mistakes aside, she had grown to care for the X-Men. Kitty, with her endless questions and enthusiasm reminded her of Eva. Ororo had helped her through trials and tribulations, protecting her from some of Kurt’s more overzealous jokes. Kurt seemed to think that she needed to have water thrown at her every time she walked into a room. Charles- she no longer thought of him as Xavier- had taken to spending time with her to talk about her past. It helped. She unloaded a lot of stuff to him. But not Eva. Somehow she couldn’t talk about her. Scott had gradually warmed to her and had been the first to take her side on training. Now she trained separately and also with the X-Men. She’d been the one to start the sparring contest by accident. She hadn’t **meant** to say that she thought she could beat Logan. Peter was the one who stuck up for her. He liked the fact she could talk to him in Russian and spent time telling her about his family. Logan was…well Logan was the one who looked out for her.  He had given her hints in combat. The man knew more tricks than her old teacher. But what he had that his teacher didn’t was **honour**. Until now, all fights had been skewed in Tora’s favour. Now she saw the world from her opponents’ view. It was…interesting. He’d made her fight him without her claws and in an inhibitor field from which he was shielded. She’d been beaten in a moment. Deep down she knew she had stayed too long, she should move on. But every time she thought that she answered _I’ll leave soon. Within a few days. I’ll go and I won’t come back_.

 

* * *

 

 

As if. Not a chance of her going. In fact she was about to make a choice that shaped the rest of her life. Should she get the Eye to play it in slow motion? Probably not. It was impressive enough as it was.

 

* * *

 

 

She sat quietly with Charles as he explained the rules of chess to her. The others were on a mission. Nothing dangerous, just surveillance. As she wasn’t officially an X-Man she didn’t go. She didn’t mind. It was at this point Charles discussed her past. He was good at helping her see the way out. He made her think about what had happened. He tried to tell her again and again it wasn’t her fault. Easy for him to say. He didn’t have his best friend’s death hanging over him. She couldn’t tell him about Eva. That pain she kept to herself. But the talks still helped. They eased the pain of life. And chess was rather interesting. Strategy mattered. Also, Charles couldn’t read her and she could read him. She’d still never beaten him though.

They often sat like that, in silence, waiting for the other to make their move. They rarely spoke except when he asked her if she was certain about a move she had made. It was at this time her guard could drop. Which really wasn’t a good idea right now.

The walls suddenly burst in on themselves. Stupid. Let her guard down. She tried to get into a low combat position to leap towards him but an arm like a hammer slammed her across the room and into the opposite wall. Half-stunned she tried to get up only to see Charles knocked out of his chair and their assailant towering over him.

“No!”

She managed to stand upright and then leapt, hoping against hope this man would turn to see her. He did and she managed to punch him in the face before dropping down, grimacing at the fact that this was her first proper fight in the real world and she didn’t have a clue about her opponent or his abilities. The man- whoever he was- seemed surprised that the woman he had thrown across the room and who should now be unconscious had just broken his nose.

“Wotcher doin’ here? X-Men should be ‘way.”

She snarled and leapt again, hoping to take him off balance only to be caught around the neck.

“You don talk much. You’ll talk less when I’ve finished.”

He twisted his hand, expecting to hear a sickening crack and have this irritating little woman stop getting in the way of his job. Therefore, he wasn’t prepared for her to kick out with her dangling foot, hitting home. She hit the floor hard, the bruises around her neck already healing. As the man crouched over, groaning she dived towards Charles, righting his chair and pushing him into it.

“Go.”

She turned and once again, the hammer fist slammed into her. But while the first blow had clouded her mind, this one cleared it. The pieces of metal in her head gave her the information she needed. They broke down the man into sections, giving her all the stuff she knew about him in bite sized chucks.

_He’s strong. Hits like Peter._

_He isn’t a mutant. You can smell mutants._

_His powers are tech-based._

_That wire on the right arm. That’s the wire you need._

She considered, then decided. She moved as though she had been injured, dragging her left arm.

“You ain’t gonna last much longer witch. I’ll kill ya if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I could arrange that.”

“Ya talk alright. Ain’t heard anyone that proper since…Well I ain’t never heard anyone talk so proper in my life. Now step aside and lemme get to Xavier and I’ll not hurt ya. I’ll just kill ya.”

“People have tried, believe me. None have succeeded. I am good at surviving. And I cannot allow you to hurt Charles.”

“Yar wings clipped. Ya’ll not last long.”

With that he stepped closer, towering over the slight woman who looked preposterously small in comparison.

“As a matter of fact, I’m not.”

She leapt, going straight for the face, nails clawing at his eyes. Damn Logan and his honour code. She was going to win this fight. This man would kill Charles and Logan wasn’t here to stop it. Fingers caught the wire and she tugged, pulling it out of place. She landed and spun a roundhouse kick, heel landing firmly in the man’s stomach. He collapsed and she pinched her fingers at the base of the nerve cluster. The man couldn’t move.

“Damn you.”

She let the smooth metal slide out of her right hand.

“Yar a mutie!”

“I am a mutant. And now I have a question. Answer it or you’ll find how sharp these claws are.”

He paled. Charles looked worried. She didn’t look at him. If she had to, could she, would she kill him? Let’s hope she didn’t have to find out.

“Why are you here?”

“I was hired. Kill Charles Xavier. The X-Men would be out of the picture.”

“Who hired you?”

“Some mutie. Don’t know his name. All I know, the cash was there and it wasn’t fake.”

She snarled and then hit him between the eyes…with her left hand. He collapsed, unconscious and she looked round to see Charles.

“Tora. Thank you.”

She smiled, a light sparkling in her eyes.

“Where shall I put him?”

“I’ll ring the police.”

“Charles…”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering… Would you allow me to stay? To become an X-Man?”

“Child, I would like nothing better.”

She bent over to drag the man out of the room and then turned, pointing to the broken chessboard.

“I was winning that game.”

 

* * *

 

 

She had decided. She wouldn’t regret that decision. Even when she saw the world die, Tora would never once disagree with that impulsive moment after saving Xavier’s life. The woman with no family now had one.

 


	8. X-Man

Logan was exhausted. It had been a false trail and he’d not slept. As he walked into the living room, he gaped.

“What happened?”

The outer wall was covered in a tarp and the opposite wall had a huge dent in it, like someone had been thrown across the room.

“Charles.”

“I am here Logan.”

The other X-Men entered the room.

“Mein Gott. Vas…?”

“We were attacked tonight.”

“Where’s Tora?”

If something had happened to her… She was so unsure. Just a kid really.

“I think she went to bed.”

“What?”

“She said something about fighting murderous maniacs making her feel tired.”

“WHAT?”

“Suffice to say, I would not have survived tonight without her.”

He took the stairs three at a time, the other X-Men following. When he got there, Kitty stuck her head out of the door. She’d obviously gone straight up.

“She’s not there!”

They dived through the door. The windows were open and the bed unslept in.

“Where is she?”

He sniffed. Then grinned.

“Shh. She’s still here.”

“Where?”

Still grinning he went over to the bed and pull up the heavy quilt. Curled up cat-like under the wooden slats, Tora slept.

“Didn’t think she slept in the bed.”

 

* * *

 

 

Old habits die hard. After the first night when she’d tried and failed to sleep on the bed she’d found that under it was comfortable enough and darker. It was easier to stay with her own methods of sleep. She’d sunk into the mattress and decided the floor was a better option.

 

* * *

 

It was dark. The room seemed empty. Typical. First real mission with the X-Men and she managed to get herself captured. OK, the others were captured as well. But not the most auspicious start to a career. But the chains. Wait. They weren’t too strong. She twisted her arms, hoping against hope. There. Claws free, now to break the chains. It didn’t take long. The idiots had used steel. Steel didn’t hold her. She massaged her wrists, getting the feeling back in her hands. Then she walked to the door and slid the smooth metal claws down the sides, cutting neatly though the hinges. She stood back, letting the door fall towards her. Now to bust the others out. She calmed down. Slowed her breathing until her heartbeat slowed to a steady pace. No need to panic. Scent. Logan was two doors on her right. He’d be the best in this situation. But Scott was leader. Finally she chose Logan. It was easier. Claws gently edging up the sides of the door. The door fell in, almost crushing a now unchained Logan.

“Beat me to it.”

She laughed.

“Help me get Scott out.”

“Why don’t we leave him?”

“Tempting. But I have an idea. You get Kurt and Peter. I’ll get Scott and ‘Ro.”

“I still can’t see why we have to rescue him.”

She ran down the corridor, scenting the air. There. Scott. The claw approach again. Once she was in, it was a moment’s work to shatter the metal visor that stopped him from firing his optic blasts.

“Good work Tora.”

Under the mask she blushed. She wasn’t used to being complimented. She’d gone for an almost full-face mask, leaving only her mouth and lower nose uncovered. She’d also insisted on the solid piece of burnished black metal that acted as protection to her nose and around the eyes and jawbone, as well as pinning her hair back. She’d done a single drawing and that had been it. Uniform awarded. She hadn’t wanted talks. She’d just wanted to be in the field. Who cared if she wore yellow and red or orange with black stripes? All that mattered was she helping her friends- because they were friends- fight for what they believed in.  Now to rescue Storm. When she got there, she realized what they’d done. She was in a tiny space. She knew about Ororo’s claustrophobia. How could she not? It was something she in part shared. She preferred the outdoors. But if she was out there and found a small cranny, she felt safe in it. That’s why she still didn’t sleep in the bed. She liked the area under it. It was safe and small and warm. So all she could do was hold Ororo close, whisper words of comfort until she stopped shaking. Then they had fought. Fought for their lives. And she had loved it. Every second. The adrenalin rushed, giving her reflexes, already fast, a boost. There wasn’t fear there. Just enjoyment and the thrill of fighting.

They turned to leave. Scott glanced at her.

“Good work…Tigress.”

 

* * *

 

The name had just been there. Like the name she now took as her own. Tora. Tiger. With her red and black hair, golden eyes and graceful claws, it was who she had become. The claws. Thin. Thinner than Logan’s. A full three inches shorter. But she’d soon learn that fighting wasn’t the thrill she thought it was.

 

* * *

 

She could see why Logan had wanted to bring her here. He’d said she hadn’t lived until she’d seen a Noh performance. He’d tried to get the others to come but they wouldn’t. Kurt had a date with Amanda, Charles had work to do, Scott didn’t want to go anywhere with Logan, ‘Roro was doing **something** in her attic that meant water was coming through the ceiling again and Peter and Kitty just didn’t want to go out. So it had just been her and Logan. She now knew the word that she felt about him. He was like a father. Overprotective, watching out for her. Dragging her off to see performances. But he’d been right this time. She’d loved every minute of it. Now they were leaving. The good point of there only being two of them was that they were able to travel on the bike. She didn’t like the cars. They enclosed her, but not safe enclosure. Cage enclosure. The bike gave her a freedom not usually allowed. Logan still wouldn’t let her drive though. Fine, she didn’t have a license but she could drive. She was trying to get a license but she couldn’t. Not with only one name and no proper ID. How had Logan managed it? But then he’d had a past before hand. He just couldn’t remember it. She moved towards the bike outside, so intent on hearing about other plays Logan had seen, guard down as it rarely was, she didn’t see the garbage truck coming. The first thing she knew was Logan trying to push her out the way and then the gas filling her lungs and blackness swirling as she reached out and caught his hand and he tried to tell her she’d be fine, that she’d be out soon. But the confinement terrified her. She was meant for the wilderness, not a dark space. Chains were her greatest fear. And they were chaining her with sleep.

 

* * *

 

 That was very like her. Her whole life she’d want, need freedom. The freedom the X-Men gave her was an example of that. She was wild at heart, needing freedom like an animal does. Some animals can’t survive in captivity. She was one of those. To thrive she needed space and room to roam. She’d survived as a child because she didn’t know anything else. Now she breathed freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally posted chapter 9 in this one's place. Hope it wasn't too confusing.


	9. Doubts

 

Her sense of smell was the first to return to her. Amanda was there. Please no! Not Kurt! Where were the X-Men? They wouldn’t have killed them and left her alive. Please no!

Then her hearing returned slowly but surely.

“Course you already know the rules of Murderworld. Play to live. Live to play.”

She could feel again. She was in a box of some sort. It pinioned her arms. But with enough force she could tear her way out. But not without her sight.

Gradually the darkness blurred out. She was in a control room. A man with red hair and a ridiculous bow tie was watching screens of her friends fighting for their lives. A slight turn of the head and she could see Amanda, all done up like a present. Was that what she was in? Oh no. There was a bow and everything. Who was this madman?

“Ah darlin’ you’re awake. Didn’t think anyone who took that ‘mount o gas would be alive, let alone awake. So what’s a lovely lady like you doing with a madman like Wolvie?”

“He isn’t a madman. If anyone here is insane, it’s you.”

“Aw and we haven’t even be introduced.”

She snarled, lips curling back to reveal her sharp canines. It was an impressive threat, made even more so when the low growl from the back of her throat resonated around the room.

“Looks like Wolvie’s been teaching you some tricks.”

“If my hands were free, you’d not have enough breath to insult Logan.”

He laughed and turned away, already bored with insulting her. She tensed then relaxed, allowing the claws to slip out of her hands and then swiftly ripped up, tearing herself free. The man turned and collapsed as she hit him. She moved swiftly, freeing Amanda and giving a quick smile to alleviate her fear. And then she felt something hit her between the shoulders. She turned and saw a woman holding a dart gun. Tranquillizers. Good thing they didn’t work too well on her. She advanced, only to be hit again. She staggered but managed to remain upright. The third caused her to collapse but she still tried to crawl towards the woman. The fourth hit her but she didn’t feel it. There was only the darkness clouding her mind. In her head she screamed. She was needed. The X-Men needed her. In reality she collapsed without a sound.

 

* * *

 

 

Of course she couldn’t make a sound. She’d just been given enough tranquillizers to subdue a herd of rampaging elephants. She’d be groggy for days. If she survived the next few minutes.

 

* * *

 

 

There was nothing she could do. She had been changed into costume. Why would he do that? Unless…Unless he wanted her to fight her way out. But where? There was a corridor but the room was lined with mirrors. There was only one exit. That meant it was a trap. She turned to see a crazy figure of herself. She was still woozy from the sedative. Couldn’t think straight. She was hit in the face by the doppelganger. The wound healed. Whoever this character was, it didn’t have healing halters. And it didn’t have a scent. Robot. Good. That meant she could destroy it. She slammed the robot hard, tearing through delicate circuitry. And then she heard the other noises and turned. Lots of hers. She was too tired to move fast and was soon surrounded. Rough hands pushed her down and she felt a single glassy claw at the base of her skull. She didn’t know if she’d heal a direct injury to the brain.

Why? The question screamed. She had so much to learn. Why? Why did she have to die when she’d just become free? She didn’t try to fight. She couldn’t. Her limbs were like lead. She bowed her head. Calm swept through her. If she was going to die, it may as well be quick. She stopped the ineffective struggling. No pain. The sedative would see to that. Odd. She’d survived all Creed had thrown at her, managed to live with metal in her bones. And now she was going to die without a fight in a corridor of mirrors, surrounded by distorted robot versions of herself.

Nothing. No emotions. No light. Just darkness. And then a voice.

“Do you realize you’re a lot heavier than you look?”

“K…Kitty?”

“You **so** owe me. Those bots were about to cut your head off.”

“Shouldn’t have…”

“Shouldn’t have rescued you? Tora, what are you talking about?”

“Not good enough. Second best. Have to be best.”

She didn’t hear Kitty’s answer.

 

* * *

 

 

Why? That would be a question that would resonate for Tora’s life. Why? Why did they do that to me? Why did I let them do it? Why do people fear me? Why am I what I am?

 

* * *

 

 

She sat in the melting snow, letting the cold move through her. Her limbs were freezing. She knew she wouldn’t get frostbite. Sitting in silence in the woods. Allowing the drugs time to get out of her system. She had no worth. No meaning. She’d failed. Kitty should have left her to die. She’d rescued the hostage instead of taking out the hostiles. Basic mistake number 21. She should be more responsible than that. She could hear Logan coming. Should she hide?

“Kid, you’re wearing shorts!”

“And…?”

“I know you feel you’re invincible but…”

“I know I’m not invincible. Today proved that. I’m useless.”

“No…”

“Don’t deny it.”

“You made a mistake…”

“I’m not meant to make mistakes. I’m supposed to be better than Weapon X.”

Silence. She looked round. He was stock-still.

“Who?”

“Some Weapon Plus Project. They lost their precious Weapon X. I was the next step. A weapon fully controllable. Been in their control all **it’s** life and so mouldable. No memories of a past. Beats me how they knew I was the right mutant.”

“I used to be part of Weapon X.”

That statement, so softly given changed everything.

“What was your number?”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s all in the past.”

“I hate him you know.”

“Who?”

“The original. If he hadn’t done what they wanted, if he’d had a shred of humanity, they’d have left the rest of us alone.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“Yes I can. I was trained to **be** him. I know all there is to know about him.”

“Tora…”

“Can you just give me some time alone?”

“If you do this to yourself every time you make a mistake, then they won.”

She could hear him walking as if to go back.

“Logan…”

  

* * *

 

 

They still had a hold on her. She was scared and insecure. She’d never find the balance if she let them hold onto her, let their legacy rule her fear.

 

* * *

 

She moved silently through the woods, hunting and being hunted. It was cold and dark and she really shouldn’t be out here. It **had** been fun breaking out of the manor though. She tensed then leapt, landing gracefully in a tree. Logan walked under the tree and she grinned. Gotcha.

She leapt neatly, landing silently behind him. She moved in, ready to fight. And her boot caught on a branch which grated along a rock. Logan turned and snarled. She managed to dodge the first blow and extended her claws. They danced around each other, neither wanting to risk a move that could result is injury. Then she flipped forward and rammed her fist forward, claws touching his throat. Then she glanced down and saw his claws over her heart. She looked back, to the cowl behind which she knew Logan would be smiling grimly.

“Stalemate?”

He laughed at that.

“Sure. Kid, you’re good. Didn’t smell you at all. How did you cover your scent?”

“Take my word that you don’t want to know.”

He sniffed then gagged.

“You didn’t have to go **that** far.”

“I should probably go to get a shower.”

The two walked back up to the mansion, Logan upwind.

The door was unlocked and they were laughing as they walking it. Only to stop when they realized that Scott had just come out of the kitchen and was staring at them. Suddenly Logan was conscious of the filth Tora had plastered on her hair and costume to hide her scent. It would be so easy for Slim to misinterpret the fact they were returning to the house after midnight, having not mentioned going out, especially with Tora’s slightly bedraggled appearance. She was totally oblivious to what could be read into appearances. She saw him as a friend, nothing more. But would she see him as a friend if she knew he was the original Weapon X? Probably not. She saw things in black and white. Friend or foe. Fight or flight.  Me or them. It was how an animal saw things. She had things easy. To her there was truth or mistakes, not lies. She had placed everything she saw into good and bad and wouldn’t waver from what she saw. He’d got that from much from her stance. But then it was guarded. For all he knew she could be hiding behind layers upon layer of posture. No hint of thoughts would glow for a moment in her eyes.

She already bounded up the steps and he got another noseful of the stuff she’d used to cover her scent. And he was left to try and explain to Scott what he’d been doing in the middle of the night with the new X-Man.

 

* * *

 

Of course she saw things in black and white. She didn’t know better. Her life had always been those who were kind to her and those who tried to hurt her. She not yet met someone who she liked that would hurt her. She’d not found the people who hated her but would save her. And so she still hadn’t become human. Oh, she was nearly there but it would take a lot more to cause her to move the last few feet and finally feel as a human did. With all the shades of grey and the complexities of right and wrong.

 

* * *

 

She had managed to get all the muck out of her hair but now the shower was filthy. She’d clean it tomorrow…today. It was early and she could do with some sleep. For the first time since she arrived she collapsed on the bed instead of underneath. And she slept.

She was screaming as Creed and Robson moved in on her, needles and claws glinting. She felt pure pain and then looked over and saw the other X-Men chained. All of them? No. Logan was there, unchained, snarling, hair long and ferocious. His claws were out and he was guarding the X-Men. Then Creed, Robson and the X-Men faded away and she was left with Logan. And his claws dug deep into her stomach and she didn’t heal.

There were arms around her now and whispers.

“Hush. Hush. It’s just a dream. A nightmare. It’s not real.”

‘Ro.

“It was. I was there. You were too. Logan… He was dangerous. Worse than Creed. Please…”

She felt Storm stiffen as she mentioned Logan’s name and managed to get loose. It was then she saw what she had done. The room was wrecked. She’d thrown stuff and the sheets and mattress were shredded. The windows had been smashed when she’d thrown the collar. Logan had cut it out shortly after her arrival and for a reason she wasn’t quite sure of she’d kept it.

“Please ‘Ro. Help me. Help me out of this.”

Every night. Every night she woke screaming in the darkness. But all it had been before were memories and she could handle them. She’d lived through them once. Twice wasn’t too hard. But this one was different. This one left her shaking and gabbling, clinging to Ororo like a baby. Why? Why now?

 

* * *

 

It was the first time she had dreamed. Before they were simply memories. But now she was almost there. Few more steps and she’d be there. A human, plain and simple. Not a weapon, not an animal. A person, full and complete.

 

* * *

 

 

Ororo hadn’t mentioned the nightmare. Tora made her promise. They’d cleaned up and she’d managed to get ‘Ro to leave and then she’d sat in fear the rest of the night, not daring to close her eyes. She’d not been able to sleep. At least she always woke early so she didn’t have to sit in the silent room for too long. As soon as she heard the grandfather clock downstairs strike six she’d leapt off the bed and dressed in her uniform. Long sleeves and gloves, black and orange. It was designed to put the opponent off, sharp lines leading away from the vital areas and leading to the shoulders and arms. Stripes of black on the orange suit, orange on the black gloves and boots. Finally she reached out and pulled the cloth mask over her face before brushing the burnished metal of the black headdress. A moment’s hesitation and then she raised it to her face, feeling it clamp into place, down the nose and round the eyes, then down the jawbone to the sides of her mouth. It was stylised, shaped like a child’s drawing of a tiger’s stripes but it kept her other mask in place. Her design hadn’t included it but when she’d opened the package it had been on top, empty eye sockets staring up at her. Something about it had intrigued her and she’d put it on and worn it. No one had noticed.

She knew what she was doing. Sure, she wasn’t **meant** to go on a combat workout when everyone else was asleep but she found combat cleared her head. She walked the first flight of stair and then jumped the rest. She did this often. It wasn’t hard to program the Room. The memory of the runs were wiped so as long as she wasn’t caught in the act it would be fine. She entered the control room and programmed a sequence. Then ran as quickly as she could around the house to get to the door. She entered just as the program started and she danced and dodged. All she had to do was hit the button on the opposite side of the room. She felt a razor wing slice her neck but the blood flow soon stopped. She slowed down, taking her time to traverse the room, enjoying the rush that came with a fight. Then she reached out and lazily pressed the button. Everything stopped. In the silence only found after lots of loud noise, she relaxed, letting the tension slide out of her.

“Ahem.”

Charles was in the control room. How long had he been there? She waved, hoping he wouldn’t be annoyed.

“Good morning.”

“What have I told you about running Danger Room sessions unobserved?”

She concentrated and then a voice eerily like Xavier’s filled the room.

“The Danger Room should **only** be used when supervised. If you were injured then there would be no one to help you. Would you like me to continue?”

“How did you learn to do that?”

“What?”

“Impersonate my voice.”

“Oh, impersonations are easy. I can be from anywhere Senor. You see Herr Xavier, I can not only speak languages but I can imitate any accent.”

Throughout this statement her voice had changed, flipping from a slight Italian accent to heavy German. Then she turned and left the Danger Room leaving Charles to silent introspection.

 

* * *

 

 

She grew to enjoy doing that. Walking off in the middle of a conversation simply because she didn’t see a point in continuing it. It drove people up the wall, round the bend and down the plughole. But if she saw a topic had reached the end of what she wanted to talk about she’d leave. She didn’t like it when people tried to change the topic to cover up. So she came across as blunt and slightly tactless. The woman smiled. That’s what Tora wanted.

 


	10. Coffee

She sat there in the kitchen drinking the coffee she had made herself. She **really** liked this stuff. The first time they’d given her some she’d sat there for ages just enjoying the scent. Kitty had to remind her it was a drink and she was supposed to ingest it. She blushed and gulped it down, burning her throat. And then gasped and went to get another cup. After she went back for the third, Scott had stopped her and told her that she’d get addicted to caffeine if she carried on. He didn’t see why she burst into fits of laughter until she explained her body flushed out drugs almost as soon as they entered her system. They’d asked her how she knew. And she’d gone back to the time when she was thirteen and they decided to see how good her immune system was at flushing out foreign contaminants. They’d started small with the Class-C drugs, increasing the dosage and monitoring her responses. And they’d worked their way up to the Class-A drugs. To begin with they affected her. The hallucinations were terrible. Because they didn’t affect her the way they apparently affected everyone else. Instead her immune system went into overdrive and completely took over and she lost all knowledge of where she was, **who** she was. And when you have so little, memories mean a lot to you. Then they stopped. All the hallucinations and pain stopped. So they declared the test a success and moved onto radiation.

When she’d finished telling them, she had started to shake and the others had just looked horrified. They did that a lot. And then they’d asked if she wanted to cry. And she’d turned round and told them she hadn’t cried since she was six years old. That crying was a weakness. And Charles had looked her in the eyes and told her crying wasn’t a weakness. It was a gift. And then she told them why she couldn’t cry. They’d torn out her tear ducts. When she’d got her powers they grew back but she couldn’t remember how to cry. That shocked them more than the explanation of the drugs tests. She didn’t understand them at times. But she shuddered when she remembered the radiation tests. That had been the closest she ever came to dying. They hadn’t realized those tests they’d done when she was a little kid made her immune system sluggish when it came to gamma radiation. They had only realized something was wrong when she had stopped screaming and just curled up and pressed her hand to her head. She would have done it too. But they stopped and burst in all armoured up, not realizing she was too sick to move, let alone kill anyone. They’d stopped the experiments for a while then. She didn’t really remember. She’d been too ill, too wrapped up in the desperate attempts to save the multi-million dollar weapon from dying. They hadn’t been interested in her life. It was only the money that had been spent on her they cared about. But she hadn’t told them about that. She didn’t want them to pity her even more. Oh, she’d seen the looks on their faces. Pity. She didn’t want pity. She wanted them to forget about it all, act as though they hadn’t happened. It worked for her. She blanked it all out, aside from the annoying buzzing in her skull as the computers turned everything she saw into a weapon and recorded every piece of information she gathered. At times she wanted to tear them out but she couldn’t. The metal skull saw to that. A scent was entering the room now.

“Logan.”

“I’m not used to people knowing who I am before I even open my mouth.”

“You do it all the time.”

She heard him chuckle at that.

“Guess I do. But I hadn’t realized how disconcerting it was.”

She turned. He wasn’t in uniform and he had his hat tucked under one arm.

“Going out?”

“Yeah. I normally like to be alone this day every year.”

“Something to do with your past?”

“You could say that.”

“Do…do you remember anything? I can’t but I was just a child…”

He frowned as if he hoped she hadn’t asked that question.

“Not really. A few faces, couple of blurred memories. That’s it.”

He hurried out, as if he was worried she’d ask more questions. She heard his bike being kick-started and he had left. She busied herself making the coffee for the others, then glanced at the clock and counted to ten. As she finished she caught the scent of brimstone.

“Morning, Kurt.”

“Fraulein, why are you in your uniform?”

“I’m not all too sure. Coffee?”

“Tora, I could get used to this service.”

She smiled and swung the cup round. The sight of Kurt sipping delicately from his cup as he hung upside-down always made her grin. He made her laugh and he enjoyed the protracted conversations they had in German. He finished and then ported over to the sink to clean the cup.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to port in the house.”

“Ah, but you won’t tell on me will you?”

“I might. If you put a bucket of paint on my door again.”

“Ah, yes. Pray tell why you only saw fit to enter your room at one thirty in the morning.”

“I was training.”

“You are always training.”

“I don’t really know what to do with my time. When I was younger my entire life was scheduled. When I was older, I lost all notion of time.”

She rummaged through drawers, trying to find a bread knife. In the end she gave up and simply extended a claw and attacked the loaf. When she turned, Kurt was looking at her claw.

“Does it hurt?”

“What?”

“When you extend your claws. Does it hurt?”

She turned away. Then turned back.

“Have you ever had a skewer pushed into you? Now imagine that, but it’s coming from inside you. The skewer’s a part of you but it hurts when you push it through the skin.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She glanced down at the claws. They were short, nine inches. Enough for them to fold in on themselves twice. Three three inch sections. Each thinner than the one before. The thickest section no thicker than the narrowest point of her smallest metacarpal. Next to Logan’s foot-long claws, twice the thickness, they looked insubstantial. But they were useful. She’d taken to using them when she couldn’t find cutlery. The first time Kurt had come down and found her trying- and failing- to eat noodles with her claws, he’d fallen off the ceiling. When she’d explained that he’d forgotten to do the washing up again he’d disappeared pretty fast.

Storm was next in. She glanced at Tora but soon realized that she was fine after the nightmare of the night before. She glanced upstairs.

“Whose turn is it to wake Kitty?”

Tora pointed to Kurt. Kurt pointed to Tora. Then they both glanced upstairs, then at each other and chorused in unison.

“Scott’s.”

Storm smiled slightly.

“Ah, ganging up on our fearless leader. Do you know where Logan is?”

“He left. At about half six. Said he wanted to spend today alone.”

Storm looked slightly surprised at that but then turned to walk away. As a passing remark she completely crushed the hopes of the two others in the room.

“By the way, Scott’s out. You’ll have to decide who wakes Kitty up.”

A swift but brutal fight ensured. Only to stop when Kitty fell through the ceiling fully-dressed.

 

* * *

 

 

The woman relaxed her hold on the Eye. The waters faded, losing the image to become just plain water. She turned her head. She always knew when someone entered the Library. One word was spoken. Her voice was low and soft.

“Thana.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that. It sounds like Thanos.”

“You can first. What do you want me to call you? Mort? Mistress Death?”

“Just Death will do. Are you still spending all your time at the Eye?”

“What else can I do?”

The other woman entered into her vision. For a second a cowled skull grinned out at her but that faded into a beautiful black haired, black-eyed woman. She sat next to her friend whose ice mask appeared more expressive than the side of her face still showing.

“Show me.”

The woman glanced at Death. Then smiled and reached out to the pool. The images reappeared and then moved.


	11. Birthdays

Tora was standing on the balcony in her room. For the first time ever, she’d managed to beat Charles at chess. She’d been careful, tried not to sacrifice too many pieces and then given up and just played to win. Charles, so used to having her always using subtly wasn’t able to change his strategy quickly enough and it slightly surprised him when she glanced up and murmured, “Checkmate.”

He’d smiled and then they’d played again and again and again. By the time they’d finished the last game it was late and neither had noticed time passing. She’d enjoyed it because it was a challenge, something to stretch her mind, whilst he enjoyed playing against someone whose next move was a surprise. He always played white. She played black or red, depending on which chess set they were using. The pieces kept going missing, possibly because when they played they completely blanked out the rest of the world to the annoyance of the others.

An engine stopped her thoughts. Logan was back. But something was wrong. The bike was stuttering and there it was. The smell of blood. No! Please not Logan. Without a second thought she leapt off the balcony, landing hard on the gravel drive, the grazes healing quickly. She ran, managing to get to Logan just as he slumped off the bike. She caught him and her hand brushed against blood. He glanced round at her.

“Tora? What yer doing out here?”

“Helping you. I’ll get you inside.”

Straining against the weight of a man who whilst being smaller than her was a lot stockier, she somehow managed to get him inside and upstairs to his room. As soon as she had lowered him onto his bed she ran down to get the First Aid kit. She didn’t know if she’d need it but she felt she should at least **try** to stop the blood flow. On an afterthought she also grabbed two of Logan’s beers from the fridge. He looked as though he’d need something to dull the pain.

She took the steps upstairs two at a time. She knew he’d heal but that part of her brain wasn’t working properly, shoved aside by the part screaming No! No, please not another Eva!

When she got up there the bleeding had definitely lessened. She passed Logan the beer and he looked relieved.

“I want you to play doctor ever time I injure myself.”

She shot him a dark look. It was alright for him. He knew what had happened. She didn’t. For all she knew the wound could have poison in it. She didn’t fully know the extent of his healing. But then a scent made itself plain. Why? Why did it have to be Creed? At least it meant there wasn’t any venom in the wound. She bandaged it, just to stop the sheets from being stained worse than they were.

“In the morning, put them in cold water with sodium chloride. It should lift the blood out.”

She could tell he didn’t understand.

“Salt, you idiot.”

“Ah. Wondered what you were going on about.”

She hit him with the metal First Aid kit then.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because you’re an idiot and you knew when you left this morning this was going to happen to you and you went anyway. And because you went after Creed and didn’t let me come to help. And how did you know he’d be coming after you today?”

He shifted uneasily at that. Then looked into the golden eyes that accused and burned.

“Fine. It’s…well…every year on the same day he comes after me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the first time he came after me. Because it’s his way of reminding me of our past. …It’s his way of wishing me a happy birthday.”

She wasn’t expecting that. She blinked twice and then lowered the intense gaze that dug and bore into people.

“I…I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine.”

Embarrassed she left. Silence reigned. Then Logan pulled out one of his cigars and despite various warnings from Charles, Ororo, Kurt and Peter and death-threats from Scott and Tora, he lit it.

 

* * *

 

 

The dark haired woman laughed as the final thought rose from the pool.

“Did she really hate cigar smoke that much?”

The other woman, the one with the mask of ice, smiled. It was slightly scary. The left side of her face moved but the mask didn’t shift in the slightest.

“It was about the scent.”

“You would know.”

The shorter woman rounded on the raven-haired beauty.

“I haven’t smelt anything since I lost that fight. I haven’t lived. Haven’t had anything. Just one stupid second to live over and over again. Do you realize how **boring** life without change is? It’s fine for you. You have your entire afterlife. I’ve managed to move everything into the Archives in the time it took you to visit me. And I still haven’t come to terms with my losses. Understand?”

Death stepped backwards, slightly surprised by the ferocity of the attack.

“Dra…”

“Don’t talk to me. If you want to stay to watch you can. But unless you shut up, I want you to leave.

“I’ll be quiet.”

 

* * *

 

 

She was sitting in her room. Sad. And then she had an idea. She flew around the room, gathering the stuff she needed. Then ran down to the lab. And to the kitchen. It may take a while but she’d manage it. Back to the library. She could read well. It was just writing that slowed her down. But all the stuff she needed was in the book. She spent ages working on it. Then calmed down and glanced around. It was early and no one was down. So she simply got the present and left it outside Logan’s door.

 

* * *

 

 

“Erm…”

“You can talk now.”

“OK. What did she give him? I got confused.”

“I’ll switch to his memory of what happened next shall I?”

“If you would.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Logan woke the bleeding had stopped. He glanced down and smiled. There wasn’t too much blood everywhere. Tora had managed to stop the worst of the blood leaking out of him. By tomorrow there wouldn’t be a scar. He opened the door and promptly tripped over a package. It was wrapped simply in brown paper and printed in slow steady letters, as if the person who had written it wasn’t too sure around pens was his name.

He looked around but no one was there. Then he shrugged and picked up the box. It was light. There was a clink of glass inside. Hopefully Kurt had brought him that beer he owed him for those fights. He opened it. No beer. Just a few stoppered test tubes, all containing the same colourless liquid. And a note in the same precise printing.

“Put this on your claws next time you fight him. Store at around 37°C. T”

He pulled out the plastic stopper on one and sniffed it. It was that stuff that secreted from her claws. The stuff that halted healing factors. How on Earth had she got this stuff? Unless… Was she harvesting this stuff? Surely she wouldn’t remove it from her own body? And why did she mark it in Celsius for Pete’s sake?

 

* * *

 

 

“Why did she mark it in Celsius?”

“All will be revealed Death. All in good time. All in good time.


	12. Secrets and Scars

She was sitting quietly on the bed. Logan would have it by now. Would he be angry she gave him that? It had hurt to remove the fluid but she’d done it. It had been done before. It hurt but it worked. She unsheathed one of her claws. Smooth metal slid into position. And then she leant her head forward so she could see the tiny piece of bone visible in the metal. The place the syringes used to be injected. And she couldn’t stop them drawing out the liquid. She knew most was stockpiled but that some was sold to the highest bidder. She shuddered at the thought of people all around the globe having access to that fluid. Then she got up, turned, bared her back and looked at it in the full-length mirror on the wall opposite. The scar tissue was dark, an X running from shoulder to hip. Testament to the potency of metal tempered with healing halters. She moved her hand from smooth skin to knotted scar then shrugged her shirt back on. No use brooding on the past. No use wishing the pain in her back would go away. It never would. It would always be there, deep inside her, a part of her. Like the claws and the chips and the adamantium. Pain defined her. In a way she was pain. But she controlled it. As she finished this train of thought, someone knocked on her door.

“Yes? _Oui? Ja? Da?_ ”

“Tora, it’s Logan.”

“Are you angry at me?”

“No. May I…”

“Come in.”

He was looking slightly worried about something.

“How did you get that stuff out?”

She showed him a claw. Pointed out the piece of bone.

“They’re natural?”

“Yes. I…I remember when I first used them.”

“Thanks for that stuff.

“You’re welcome.”

 

* * *

 

 

Death glanced at the woman.

“I thought Howlett’s claws were natural.”

“At the time, he thought they had been added in with the adamantium.”

“He was always an …interesting… person.”

“That he was.”

“Do you miss…?”

“What do you think?”

“I have to say, things definitely livened up when he came to my domain.”

“As yes. You have the most power now. Only the avatars survived. The end of all things is rather…final.”

“I don’t understand why the Phoenix and yourself kept your bodies.”

“I like having me around.”

“Do you realize how odd that sounds?”

“Odd? Excuse me, but don’t you realize where we are?”

“OK, I was asking for that one. Can we go back to this? I’ve never seen this part of her life before. It is…interesting.”

The masked woman smiled eerily and reached out towards the water again.

 

* * *

 

 

They were chatting, enjoying the ten-minute breather between the training sessions. Each was having a drink and discussing the new propositions Senator Kelly was supporting.

“We saved his life and now he’s trying to get us outlawed.”

“Kelly…Kelly…Wait. I know that name!”

“Tora?”

“Robert Kelly, Minister for Weapons Research?”

“I think he held that job for a while…”

She dived towards the computer. This was going to be difficult. She’d only done this twice. Once to show she could do it and once to download every piece of information in the facility. She knew this was going to hurt. She sat down, using her implants to shut down all unnecessary body functions. Then she connected herself into the computer network. On the screen opposite an image appeared. A typical computer documents folder.

“I chose this interface. I find it easy to deal with.”

“Fine with us.”

She concentrated and a folder was opened. The display flashed, trying to keep up with all the speed at which she dived through the folders. Eventually she slowed and reached a folder marked “Memos- US Government”.

“Whoa. Hold it. The Government **knew** about this?”

“They were the third highest financer. After two private owned companies.”

She entered the folder and scrolled down through the files.

“Found it.”

A date and time stamp. She then opened it. It looked like memos from any Government department. Until you read the content.

_Robson, I want to see this ‘Weapon’ you’re producing. This thing’s costing a fortune. And what on earth do you want 80 lbs of adamantium for? I’ve read all your reports and I can understand this thing’s good. The files on the last Weapon were impressive to say the least. But words been filtering back that this Weapon’s a teenager. I can condone an adult who volunteers but this project’s been ongoing for twelve years. Just how old was Weapon X-ii when you started its training?_

_Kelly_

She exited and entered the answer.

_Kelly, Weapon X and Weapon X-ii are mutants with healing factors. X-ii has been at the facility since it was two years old. Its training didn’t start until its third birthday. The adamantium is for the bones of the Weapon. The process, while fatal for a normal person, is relatively low risk for a mutant with the healing capabilities of Weapon X-ii. Because of equality laws, X-ii doesn’t **legally** count as human. It is a mutant, plain and simple._

_Robson_

She scrolled down to the answer.

_Robson. Why didn’t you say this Weapon X project was about mutants?  I’ve signed the order for the adamantium. You have the permission of the Department to go ahead with the bonding process._

_Kelly_

She exited the file and disconnected herself from the computer. Then turned and was surprised at the looks of horror on the other’s faces.

“What?”

“The evil, twisted, lying…”

“Logan…”

“We saved his stinking life and then it turns out he authorised the torture of a teenage girl, just because she was a mutant. I’m going to have a conversation with him. A short one with claws.”

“LOGAN!”

“Why is everyone so shocked by this?”

“Tora, this is the USA. We don’t…shouldn’t condone the torture of anyone. Especially not children.”

“I’ve not been a child since I was two years old. I’ve been a weapon, a prisoner and an X-Man.”

“You were still a child…”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve been used to it.”

“That’s not the point”

“It doesn’t matter! I hate the way you **pity** me! I don’t want pity! I don’t want anyone tiptoeing around me, or not mentioning espionage near me! I don’t want you all treating me like I’m made of china! I can handle a lot! I had a choice when I was twelve! Break or become strong! I blocked them out! I can block **everything** out! I don’t **want** your pity, your fear! I’m not what I once was! I’m not a weapon or a child or any of those things you **think** I am! I’m me.”

She left the room, going back to the Danger Room, leaving silence behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

“She always did hate people pitying her.”

“Yes. It has been known to drive me crazy.”

“I always wondered about her. She seemed very…forceful.”

“She was more secretive than forceful.”

“Ah.”

 

* * *

 

 

They were fighting in silence, Tora’s last, angry remark quieting them all so there weren’t any of their usual jokes. She seemed oblivious to the fact she was responsible for the brooding atmosphere and was concentrating fully on flipping through the lasers. She fought differently from the rest, never bothering to talk when she was fighting, simply striking or dodging in silence. It was slightly off-putting when you were expecting a sarcastic remark or an insult to just get a snarl or a cat-like hiss and suddenly have a 5-foot-4 clawed spring attack you.  She’d change tactics on the slightest provocation and it was disconcerting to have a person who used textbook karate defensive tactics suddenly switch to street-brawling attack. The others had been slightly worried ever since they saw her pivot on the ball of one foot, swing the other round and drive her heel straight through a robot’s head. Her boot had been shredded but her foot, despite the copious amounts of blood, was apparently completely unharmed. She’d shrugged of the questions and disappeared again for half an hour. They could only assume she went down to the lake. They’d seen her once down on the bank, a look of quiet concentration on her face. Then she’d moved so quickly, the only sign she’d actually changed position was the ripples in the lake and the fish beside her, which she then released back into the water.

She was so busy dancing around the light beams she didn’t notice the razor wings until too late. Her uniform was ripped badly, a large section of the back torn away. Then she heard the intakes of breath and heard Kurt’s murmured whisper.

“ _Vas im Himmel_ …?”

 She froze and reached around, hoping to feel the reassuring smoothness of her uniform. She touched the smooth material and ran her fingers down until she came to a tear over three inches wide. She turned, nerves causing her to bite her lips, so blood welled up before scabbing over. The program had been stopped and the others were standing there, just looking at her, a mixture of shock and revulsion on their faces. Scott looked as though he was struggling to find words.

“Who…what…did… **that** to you?”

She shifted uneasily.

“What?”

“That scar. And I don’t think that two inch wide, three inch long was all.”

She backed away, nervous.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. Seriously…”

She never got a chance to finish. Storm suddenly had her arms held back.

“Please, Tora. How bad is it?”

She didn’t bother to struggle. They’d seen only a fraction of the whole scar. Perhaps she could downplay it. But how? How could she say a mistake when she knew the truth? Instead of trying to explain, she simply hung her head down.

“Please, Tora. Show us.”

“Let my arms free. I’ll…I’ll show you.”

Ororo released her arms on the nod from Scott and Tora used her claws to tear the back off her already ruined uniform. Eyes still downcast, she slowly turned, fearfully.

She heard Logan swear loudly, Kurt murmur his familiar “ _Gott im Himmel_ ” and Piotr say something unprintable in Russian. Scott, when she turned back round, looked dumbstruck.

“Who…who…would…?”

“Was it Creed?”

Logan was apparently the first to recover.

“Later on, yes. But he was just reopening old scars. They healed. But the first time…it didn’t.”

“How…how did they…?”

“I…I don’t want to talk about this, Scott.”

“Tigress, tell me right now!”

She flinched, as if she expected a blow to the face any second now. When none were forthcoming, she looked up, her shoulders still shaking slightly. Then, as if she was steeling herself for something painful, she finally looked Cyclops in the visor.

“I was fourteen. I’d just had my adamantium implanted a few weeks beforehand. I’d only just recovered. They were planning to show me off to one of the main financers. They sent me to the training gauntlet and then put a guard in. One I…I had reason to hate. I won’t talk about why. But he had a gun and I broke it. I…I had my claws under his throat…They told me to…to kill him…And…and I…I couldn’t. I looked into that man’s eyes and saw such **fear**. I couldn’t have driven my claws into his head if my life had depended on it. And so they strapped me to a table and cut my back open with blades that had been coated with my healing halter. And they burned open my back. Again and again. My back burned as they cut again and again and again and again. I screamed. I pleaded. I begged. I tried to die. And when they’d finished **punishing** me, they sold me to Creed.”

She stood there, silent; the slight shaking of her shoulders all that betrayed her fear. She was gulping in the air, fear making her cower. Then she suddenly pulled her mask off and ran out. They heard doors slamming as she tried to run, run from the one thing she couldn’t hide from. Her memories.

 

* * *

 

 

“That is one messed-up human.”

“Death, a little more sensitivity if you please.”

“Sorry dear. I keep forgetting your ridiculous attachment to that race. They never reached the power of the Skrulls, Shi’ar or even the Kree.”

“But they have more **interesting** history than all three combined. So many powered people. And if I may remind you, both I and Phoenix hail from that insignificant race. Isn’t that a little worrying? Phoenix, who danced from person to person found the perfect avatar. I found the one person I was willing to share my power with. All from one little **insignificant** race. And if I remember correctly, which I always do, you once possessed a Mrs Marlo Jones.”

“Well everyone else was taking human avatars left, right and centre.”

“Exactly my point, old friend.”

“You only call me that when you want to rub my nose in it.”

 

* * *

 

 

She sat in the woods, high in the trees. She could see people coming from a mile off. She could hear them coming from three miles off. She was listening, watching, scenting. Feeling the shifts in air patterns, tasting the sour car fumes from the road over a mile and a half away. She hated the city. It confined her, trapped her. She wasn’t meant to be here. She was meant for the mountains and forests and plains. She was meant to roam freely, survive on what she could catch or gather. Not sit for most of the day talking. She needed to be tired, so tired she’s sleep without dreaming, so tired there wouldn’t be any of the memories played again and again and again.

She moved slightly then dropped down and began to run. Feet hit the ground and she powered forward, running and running, round and round the grounds. When she reached the lake she didn’t bother to skirt it, just dived in and swam. She wasn’t going to stop, was just going to charge in a straight line until she dropped with exhaustion. And if she dragged herself up again and kept on running, maybe then she’d just drop down and die. She remembered the peace flowing through her when she thought she was going to die. She wanted that feeling again, that calm and that certainty no one would ever hurt her again. Sometimes when you’d been hurt so badly, not physically, but mentally, then you’d just not be able to go on. You’d be fine and no injuries would be there, but you’d be broken inside. Tora hadn’t ever reached that point. When it came to the time most people would break, she’d just placed even thicker barriers between her and the rest of the world. But now her friendship with the X-Men was breaking them down and the fragile child who’d died in a room that smelt of death and dogs and blood was being subjected to all the pain and trauma that had been kept away.

Suddenly she stopped swimming. She felt the extra weight in her bones drag her down and she remembered something that she’d read in Xavier’s library. Drowning was apparently the most peaceful way to die. Maybe she’d just let the metal drag her down. The X-Men would think she’d left them and no one would ever bother to check at the very bottom of the lake. The metal would stop her body from being dredged up. She felt the water close over her head and fill her lungs. So easy. Just peace and no more pain. Then someone grabbed her arms, there was a feeling of exhaustion and then she blacked out.

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t remember that…”

“There never was a chance of her dying so you didn’t need to be there.”

“She seemed pretty close to dying.”

“Kurt had been watching her the entire time. When he saw her go under he bamfed in to rescue her.”

“What was that stupid tag line he used to say?”

“Nightcrawler by name- swashbuckler by trade, damsel saving a speciality.”

“Yes. Very stupid.”


	13. Betrayal

She was lying down and a blurry face was looking down on her. A word slid involuntarily past her lips.

“Eva…?”

“Are you alive again? We all thought you were going to die. When Kurt brought you in you were so still.”

“Kitty…?”

“Oh, I forgot. PROFESSOR! She’s awake!”

She closed her eyes, hoping Kitty would be quiet. She’d been so close. She thought for a second she’d heard Eva calling her but the words had been blurred and she hadn’t understood them fully.

“Tora.”

“Professor.”

“You’ll make a full recovery. It was lucky Kurt had been there. He’s resting at the moment. Teleporting with another is very tiring.”

“Wh…What?”

She tried to sit up only to be pushed back down.

“You need rest. I’m taking you off training for a while until you’re in a more stable mental state.”

“Please! Please don’t. I need to train!”

“Tora, I let you into the X-Men when you were still obviously recovering from your past. It was irresponsible. You hadn’t time to adjust. I want you to get used to living as normal a life as possible before I ask you to risk your life on missions.”

“Please, Professor. I need to do this alone.”

“Tora, I cannot let you fight when your mental state is so fragile…”

“You can’t read my mind so you haven’t a clue about my mental state.”

His kindly smile dropped for a second and then he turned to wheel himself away. As he opened the door he glanced back.

“I think someone should stay with you for a while. I’ll call Ororo.”

So, he didn’t trust her. She tilted her head back on the pillows and shifted uneasily. She hated being forced to stay still. She needed to get away, escape. A noise made her start.

“‘Ro couldn’t come so Chuck sent me up.”

“Hello, Logan.”

“Why did you do it? Kurt told the others that you blacked out when swimming but he told me you were fully conscious and just stopped swimming.”

“I don’t know. It was just quiet and peaceful. And…and when I thought I was going to die- in Murderworld- it was so…so…”

“Calm?”

“I…I think so. There was just that promise of no more pain, no more hurt. And I wanted that. Just to not have to live with this. The poison in my bones. The throb in my back. The whispering in my head. The ache in here.”

She pressed her hand to her heart, feeling the steady beat. She knew what the dying heart felt like. Fluttering, desperate. Trying to beat stronger but failing. Unable to do its job of pumping blood around the body so the brain slowly starved of oxygen. Her heartbeat was strong and regular, in perfect order.

“There was someone else there, wasn’t there?”

She stiffened slightly then, almost tentatively shook her head.

“There were no other living people at the facility when you arrived.”

There- a fully truthful answer, just not to the question he had asked. But she felt terrible, as if she’d just torn out her own heart. She would never do that again. Luckily Logan didn’t press her any further. He just glanced at her then shrugged. She liked that about him. He took what she said and didn’t push any further. The others either pushed for answers so hard she wanted to resist or seemed edgy around her. She was just beginning to drop into a sleep when Logan said something she didn’t quite catch.

“I’m sorry…?"

“Oh. I was just thinking. The way you act, it’s like there was someone I knew once like you. Someone important. There’s just a few words, like a lesson, and mint. I remember the smell of mint. I’m not exactly sure who but I think it could have been a teacher of some sort.”

“What are they saying?”

“Something about the things inside being the most important things we have.”

“That doesn’t sound like me…”

“No. But the tone, the **way** it was said was like you.”

“Mint’s a common soap or shampoo scent. I must be one of millions who use it.”

“Yeah. But the **other** scents from that time are all things like lavender and rose and in one case jasmine. Only one mint.”

“You don’t remember faces so how could you possible think of this person when you see me?”

“Don’t know.”

The conversation petered out and the two feral mutants sat in comfortable silence, each lost in their own thoughts. They often sat like that when everyone else was out, at opposite ends of the sitting room downstairs, Tora reading whatever dusty old tome she’d found in the library, Logan either practising his Japanese calligraphy or reading a L’Amour. Then without any given signal one would get up and go and get drinks for them both. Because both were very alike in powers and, to some extent, past, they got on extremely well. Their silent comradeship only really worked because Logan didn’t press questions on Tora and she didn’t judge his more violent tendencies like the others did. They were both reaching the ends of the respective muses when Kurt arrived.

“Hello, _mien Freunds_. How are the X-Men’s suicidal X-ii and their Weapon X?”

Logan sensed rather than saw Tora sit up.

“ _Pardon, mon amis?_ ”

He’d noticed that. When she was worried or angry about something she slipped into French, the only clue into her origins.

“Oh, has our surly Canadian not told you all about our fights with Alpha Flight in Calgary? Too bad. That was one amazing fight. You see, _Herr_ Logan over there was the precious ‘Weapon X’ of the Canadian government. He resigned to join the X-Men so the Canadian equivalent of the Avengers only more government run, was sent to bring him back.”

Kurt could tell he’d said something wrong. Logan had his head buried in his hands and Tora was sitting stock-still. Whatever was wrong, he guessed it would be better if he wasn’t there when the fireworks started. He ‘ported away as fast as he could and decided he’d go out with Amanda for a while.

As soon as Kurt had left, Logan turned to look at Tora.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds…”

“Don’t talk to me.”

Her voice was icy, harsh. She was deliberately not looking at him, her eyes focussing on the wall behind his head.

“Tora…”

That seemed to crack the smooth veneer.

“GET AWAY FROM ME! DON’T TALK TO ME, DON’T EVEN LOOK AT ME! Every word you ever told me was a lie! You pretended to be a friend, when all the time you were responsible for this! You lied and lied and lied again, all covering up your past!”

“Please, Tora, let me explain…”

“How many people did you kill, ‘Weapon X’?” The name was filled with hate.

“How many men and women have pleaded with you and you killed them anyway? Can you remember their names, their faces? Or have you killed so often they’re all one to you?”

“Tora, please…”

That was it. She exploded, launching herself off the bed Xavier had ordered her to remain in. Claws slid out of her tightly clenched fists as she screamed at him.

“GET OUT! JUST GET OUT!”

And rather than face the delicate, spindly claws that could actually kill him, Logan fled, leaving Tora to scream after him in English, French, Japanese, German and Russian.

 

* * *

 

 

“And they ended up…”

“Oh, please Death, don’t interrupt a perfectly worded outburst like that. Better than those stupid films Miss Lee insisted on watching when she arrived.”

“I never saw her lose her temper that much except when the Parker boy stole her coffee.”

“She lost it when Summers was caught with Frost.”

“Well she was Phoenix’s best friend.”

 

* * *

 

None of the other X-Men knew what had caused the painful silence between Logan and Tora. The training sessions together had stopped and Tora took pains to make sure she was never alone in the house with him. Even when others were there, she’d leave a room as soon as he entered. She took to spending most of her days with Ororo, reading her books up in her attic. She’d take Kitty into the city whenever she asked, and gradually had gained a few stores she would happily spend hours in. They were mainly tiny bookshops in which she would browse through for most of the day before Kitty dragged her out. She’d also found the song that the guard had used to sing to her by accident, hearing it being played in a restaurant and Kitty had happily identified it. She’d bought the CD with it on at a music store as well as trying to find a surprise present for Kitty’s birthday. In the end she’d simply sneaked into her room, gone through the CDs and bought the new album from the most prominent artist there, someone called ‘Dazzler’. It sounded as if she was popular. But apparently she’d made the right choice because Kitty had hugged her very hard when she’d opened it. She then started gabbling so fast Tora almost didn’t catch that Dazzler, who was really called Alison Blaire- according to Kitty- was a mutant who could convert sound into lights. Hence the name. But apparently it was a secret because of all the mutant phobia right now.

She’d also started drawing. Peter had offered her some of his art equipment and, in a futile attempt to forget all the feelings she’d been betrayed by someone she liked a lot, she began sketching furiously. She soon gave up the more realistic drawings as her photographic memory and enhanced hand-eye coordination made it too easy. Instead she started drawing small cartoon or caricatures. She found them more challenging because you had to decide what to emphasize.

But in some ways she was becoming a lot more approachable. She’d lost the slightly surly walls she threw up and a quietly sarcastic sense of humour was slowly developing. After a particularly bad training session, in which Scott had managed to get on everyone’s nerves, she had Kurt on the floor in stitches with the perfect imitation of Cyclops. She’d shifted her position, her accent had changed and her voice deepened and she’d **become** Scott for a few short seconds. The illusion had been spoiled by Kurt laughing so hard he’d fallen off the ceiling and landing on top of her, breaking her concentration. But after that she’d do impersonations of the other X-Men on request. She still avoided the TV room though. When they finally asked her why, she mentioned she didn’t see the point of staring at a series of still, unfocussed photos with a soundtrack and a high, irritating buzz. Xavier had whisked her away for more tests before discovering she saw about 30 images a second instead of the usual 20. And her hearing gave her a much higher frequency range. Therefore, the buzzing she heard was outside the usual human range and very high frequencies caused her extreme pain.

After about a month of this behaviour the Professor finally agreed to let her return to the active team roster. She hid her happiness well, guessing that if she appeared too eager to return he’d advise another month's rest.

 

* * *

 

“She’s acting more human by the day.”

“Of course. But she has still a few more things to do before she’s fully human.”

“Like that robot- Vision. He could only become human by dying.”

“A good analogy, but she doesn’t have to die.”

 

* * *

 

It was a month after she’d returned to the roster and Tigress had quickly become a fixture in the X-Men. The press interest had died down and she was fitting comfortably into the group. She still hadn’t spoken to Logan in two months except for one cursory “Pass the mustard please,” at a meal but she would fight with him if required. He’d tried to talk to her but she’d always have something important to do and would rush off before the first syllable was out of his mouth. She’d tried a fastball special the day before and proved to be a useful long-range projectile. Because her skeleton had been smaller than Logan’s when the adamantium was implanted, she had about 20 pounds less in her bones. She knew the bone was brittle and would crumble without the adamantium otherwise she’d have tried to remove it.

They’d been playing baseball again, Girls versus Boys. However, Ororo could fly and Kitty had a habit of working out vectors so they were pretty equal against Scott, Kurt, Peter and Logan. They’d been about to equalize when the Professor had appeared looking grave.

“I’ve found out a Sentinel factory has been built. If we go now, we may avoid the fiasco of the last time we were attacked by them.”

“Er… What or who are Sentinels?”

They all looked at Tora who was sitting looking slightly worried. She shrugged then defensively said, “Creed never really kept me up to date on current affairs. I can remember the conversations the guards had the day before about the founding of the Fantastic Four but that was the only conversation I remember overhearing. I assume the X-Men have been going for as long.”

“The Sentinels are mutant hunting robots. Each model has different weaknesses and they have almost wiped us out on occasions.”

She chewed her lip, obviously deep in thought.

“Are their visual sensors digital? If they are I can get in undetected and do what I’m best at. Espionage and sabotage. I wasn’t very good at assassination. Actually I was rubbish. I got a good mark in principal protection though but my teacher said I’d never be an efficient bodyguard. Apparently I’m too emotional.”

The description of quiet, reserved, practical Tora as **emotional** would have had even the most humourless person snorting. As it was, Kurt, who had been preparing to bowl, got so hysterical he ‘accidentally’ threw the ball at Scott’s head. The Professor gave him a sharp look and then turned his attention to Tora.

“I don’t think going against the Sentinels alone is a viable option. But your offer will probably come in handy. Perhaps the others could provide a distraction? Scott?”

Scott looked up only to find his head was still ringing.

“Er… I think it might work.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Did he even hear what he said?”

“Sadly, no.”


	14. Injuries to Go

“WHAT! I AGREED TO SERVE AS A DISTRACTION WHILE SHE SAUNTERS IN AND BLOWS THE PLACE UP!”

“Sadly, you did, fearless leader.”

“Shut up, Logan.”

“Well, what’s done is done, Scott. And Tora has extensive black ops training. Whilst you were…er…still slightly confused, she got the plans and then used the Danger Room to break in, dodge through the Sentinels and blow up the place, within twenty minutes.”

“Twenty…”

“ _Ja!_ She’s amazing. And when she did that triple backflip and then started tap-dancing on the Master-Mold, just because she could.”

“WHAT!!”

“Fuzzy there’s having you on.”

“Good. That didn’t sound like Tora.”

Logan immediately looked away. He didn’t like long conversations about Tora. There was still a lot of bitterness there. She had taken to blanking him whenever she walked past. And that girl could blank with the best. Most people would still react slightly to you, such as a flicker of the eyes or a change in stance. But she didn’t even see him. The only stupid thing she had said to him in **two months** was a request for a tabletop garnish! And that had been directed at Kurt.

She stuck her head into the Blackbird cockpit.

“Where’s the powerpack on a Sentinel? I’ve been studying the schematics for the last lot and I can’t find it.”

Logan looked round at her and she looked right through him. It would be worth a try.

“It’s in the base of the head.”

She gave no inclination she’d heard him. Storm, Cyclops and Nightcrawler glanced at each other. Kurt spoke up.

“It’s in the base of the head.

“Thanks Kurt.”

She disappeared, probably to continue dissection the hologram. The others all looked at Logan.

“Why does she ignore you?”

“Shut up Elf.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I still can’t believe…”

“Shh. Watch this. This is the master at work.”

 

* * *

 

 

She moved quickly, claws digging into the walls, avoiding all the delicate sensors. The alarms on the other side of the compound were ringing loudly so the other X-Men were obviously doing their job well. There was a tall robot on the other side. It looked straight through her, the digital sensors simply seeing a panoramic, **empty** horizon. She flicked over and pressed her fists deep into the metal. The robot squawked and keeled over. She grinned. She **loved** doing this. Oh, there was a big door with a big number pad. What was **wrong** with her? She was sounding like…like…well she wasn’t sure **who** she sounded like. She sauntered over. She’d be running on the way out. Of course, she could just set up a remote bomb but she preferred the old fashioned timers. Call her nostalgic or whatever. There was just something more **personal** about the countdown. And if she wasn’t fast enough then there would be extreme pain. Not death. She’d had bombs go off within a hundred feet of her and survived. But having your flesh hanging off and full thickness burns were extremely unpleasant, not to say the X-Men would probably assume she’s died in the inferno that was about to engulf this place. There were no living people in the building, something she’d made certain of before agreeing to blow it up.

She glanced at the code box. A four-digit passcode. She then leant in and placed one claw carefully on the edging. She removed the outer panel so the wires were showing. Now… It’s a standard model so if the third wire from the left is cut 3.65cm precisely from the main power supply then… the door slid open. She grinned even wider. Nice to know she was as good as ever. She glanced down the wide corridor. There **shouldn’t** be any traps but you never knew. She moved slowly, with deliberation. When no sudden attacks left her without any important organs she began to speed up, moving at a long easy lope that, if well fed when she began, she could keep up for days on end. After all, she had promised twenty minutes, a half-hour tops. Right. Right. Left. Third Left. The map was emblazoned in her mind. Advantage of a photographic memory. Left. Right. She concentrated on her steps. If she tore a tendon now… Sure it would heal but it’d add an extra fifteen minutes to her schedule. And those fifteen minutes could mean the difference between life and death for her friends.

When she reached the control room she wasn’t even out of breath. She pulled off the bag she’d been wearing and began to assemble the bomb. She was out of practise but she still was a lot faster than most people would ever be. She placed the last component in place and flicked the timer. Right. Better start running. Five minutes would give her enough time to get out of here. She moved fast, her feet hitting the ground, the launch from one foot pushing her forward even further. She shot don long corridors, Sentinels looking straight through her. She dived out of the door and considered swearing. The gates- which were supposed to be open- were closed. She’d have to scale the wall again. She leapt, claws digging in as her feet scrabbled for purchase. She knew deep down she wouldn’t be able to climb over the barbed wire in time. But she had to try.

She pulled herself over the top of the wall. And then felt the searing heat on the back of her neck as the plant exploded behind her. She didn’t scream as she fell. She was already unconscious.

 

* * *

 

 “What…”

“I’ll show you the accident from the X-Men’s point of view shall I?”

“Please”

 

* * *

 

 

It went bad from the start. They couldn’t get the gates open. The fight was fine as no one got injured. But the gates wouldn’t open. They’d been watching and then the tiny figure had reached the top of the wall. The blast had pushed her out and they’d been unable to do anything as she’d spun like a ragdoll and landed badly. Then the wall came down on her.

They’d dived in, digging through the rubble to get her. And when they finally did it was obvious something was terribly, horrifyingly wrong. Blood was everywhere. There were burns on her neck but they were healing. What worried them was the rips in her chest and stomach where she’d fallen her claws. There was so much blood… It wasn’t stopping and the scars on her back were oozing blood as well. It wasn’t pretty. Peter tried to take a pulse but he looked at them in worry.

“It’s there. But it’s so weak. I think Storm may have to act as a defibrillator soon.”

They eased her out of the rubble. The sooner they got her back the better. They improvised with a stretcher made of Storm’s cape and tried to stem the blood flow with ripped sections of their uniform. How on Earth could anyone who’d lost that much blood and still be alive? Suddenly her eyes snapped open, revealing pupils so slit-like with fear they were lost in the gold. She tried to sit up but fell back down and a low, animal whine slid from between her lips. She seemed unable to focus on them, simply having her eyes open because the light was preferable to whatever nightmares hid behind her eyes. Her breathing was short, shallow. The eight gashes had apparently been sustained when one hand had spun, ripping in just below her ribcage and tearing down the right side. The other hand had ripped horizontally directly across her stomach. She seemed to be trying to say something, voice so quiet they almost couldn’t hear her.

“No…thought…if you go…survive…please…Ev…”

“I think she’s delirious.”

“Anyone who’s that messed up shouldn’t be conscious.”

“I suppose you know all about that Logan.”

“Slim, we have a dying team-mate here. Stop biting my head off.”

“I’m glad Kitty isn’t here.”

They all exchanged nervous glances. If Kitty saw the terrible tears in Tora’s stomach or if they weren’t fast enough, saw a corpse, how would she react? With Thunderbird there were no recognizable features. Jean had effectively vaporized herself. But Tora’s face was twisted with pain and a trickle of blood was running from her mouth. They’d seen the injuries she’d got in training and even when she’d fallen badly and dislocated a shoulder, her face hadn’t shown a trace of pain. Now it was writhing as she tried to cope with the sudden draughtiness in her intestines.

As they moved her into the Blackbird and started using the emergency first aid kit, contacting the Professor and making sure Kitty had an unscheduled visit to see her parents. There’d been some argument because she was an X-Man- albeit one in training. But the general consensus had been that the injuries wouldn’t even be shown in an X-rated movie and were definitely not something a fifteen year old should be exposed to.

When they got back her heartbeat was so weak they thought for a second it had gone. Only Logan had been able to sense the fluttering, dying heart, pumping the blood out of her wounds. Her breathing was laboured, every breath causing pain. Charles had called any and all doctors he could think of. Hank McCoy was there and Dr Strange. Apparently Reed Richards was offworld and the Avengers could only spare one Hank. Hank was the only one who dared speak.

“Oh my stars and garters. Charles, I’m not that good.”

“I, however, am good enough. But my hands… I can show you how Dr McCoy.”

“Do ya think she’ll survive?”

“Wolverine, with injuries this bad, it would be a miracle if she is remains in a semi-vegative state for the rest of her life.”

As if to express her disdain for that statement, Tora’s eyes flew open and she murmured a word, a name.

“Logan…”

“Impossible. No one with such extensive injuries should be able to speak.”

“Logan…sorry…so sorry…”

A fit of coughing stopped this, spewing blood everywhere. The impossibilities of her ability to speak and react were pushed aside by the more important task of preventing any more blood from leaving her already deathly white body. Stitches were used but her healing rejected them. Under his blue fur, Beast was looking pale.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“If the contaminated flesh had been cut away as soon as possible she may have healed. As it is, her immune system has started ignoring the injuries.”

“What if another healing factor was wired up to her? Cut away the ‘contamination’ or whatever and give her blood transfusions from another with a healing factor.”

Everyone gaped at Wolverine.

“I remember it happening to me.”

The flurry of activity that followed was frantic. Logan suggested direct transfer, while Hank was nervously removing the skin, muscle and intestines that had been torn into. Finally the thin needles and tubes were placed in her arm and Logan’s blood, filled with the hormones that allowed him to heal, reached the fluttering, dying heart. As they watched, hopeful, desperate, the gaping wounds began to slowly, oh so slowly, knit together. The monitor of her heartbeat showed it strengthening, starting to beat in time with the other heart attached by the plastic tubing. Her golden eyes were open now but still slightly unfocussed. There was no fear in her eyes. In fact, her pupils had dilated, becoming almost round and finally not looking lost in her oversized irises. She looked calm and almost happy. At any rate, the pained look on her face had gone and there was a slight twitching around the eyes that looked like she wanted to smile.

“At the rate she’s healing, we’ll have to either take some of Logan’s blood and inject it in at regular intervals throughout the night. Or Logan could remain here with his blood being used as a healing factor by someone who apparently hasn’t spoken to him for two months.”

 

* * *

 

“I think I remember that. It was definitely borderline. I didn’t attend in person of course. I sent Reave to that.”

“Reave? The Edinburgh doctor you tried to kill then offered a job?”

“Yes. That one.”

“The one who ended up joining the Avengers?”

“Yes.”

“Is he still around?”

“Yes. I left him in charge. He’s very responsible. Can we see more? This is better than those Mojoverse TV shows.”

“You **liked** Mojoverse shows?!”

“I spent a lot of time there.”

 

* * *

 

It was dark and both were asleep. Tora lying on the Medi-Lab bed and Logan slumped over in the seat beside her. There were only a few thin white lines to show where, mere hours before, blood had been flowing freely. She had still been slightly delirious when she’d fallen asleep, muttering something about not being able to run the gauntlet. Logan had fallen asleep a while after. Tora was creating her own blood now but it was doing a double circuit. Round through one heart and into the other. Screaming woke him. She was struggling, trying to get out. He knew what was wrong. He often woke like that as well, screaming as he thought all the good times with the X-Men were just him imagining a better world. He reached out hesitantly. She’d probably gut him if he tried to touch her hand. Then her eyes were fixed on his. She wasn’t looking through him but at him and somehow he could almost read her. She gestured weakly to the various drips and pipes that had been inserted into her bloodstream.

“What happened?”

“You…you’re not going to start ignoring me again are you?”

Her eyes filled with a deep sorrow. For the first time ever he saw true emotion in them. Not the guarded emotions that she allowed out. He began to realize the depth with which she felt emotions and exactly why barriers were thrown up. Then she seemed to realize he was reading her and the barriers were up again. But he sensed it wouldn’t take so much to push them down again.

“I…I…I’m sorry.”

He tried to wave the apology aside but he realized how important this was to her.

“I messed up too. Should have told you straight out when I realized it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t though. I blamed you for something you had no control over. I got lucky, had someone there who told me not to lose hope. If he hadn’t been there I think I’d have been everything they wanted me to be –and more.”

She shuddered as if she was thinking of the fate that could have been hers.

“I think I would have been worse than you ever could be. It’s still there. All the darkness swirling away, eating away at me. I have it under control, have had it there for years. Creed showed me what would happen if I gave into it, but before that I was frankly…I suppose you could say I was ill. I mauled a guard so badly he’d never walk again but I deliberately stopped before I killed him.”

“If you didn’t kill him, it can’t have-”

“I destroyed his life. By the end of it he was begging me to kill him but I just continued to…play with him, like a cat plays with a mouse. They dragged me off him and punished me. That’s when I got this.”

She tried to tug her boot off but lapsed into a fit of coughing. Logan carefully removed it and gasped. Branded into her calf was the word ‘ANIMAL’

“Each letter was done separately and when they’d finished they burnt it open again. After that I learnt better so I took my anger out on myself.”

She traced the lines around her wrists and lower arms that were so faint even Logan with his enhanced senses hadn’t seen them before she pointed them out.

“I’ve countless reminders of my time there. Each one still hurts a little.”

“If those were done with your claws, how did you heal?”

“They cut out the enzymes as soon as they could. Then they put the adamantium gloves on so I’d do stupid stunts in training instead.”

“Like?”

“Standing under a pile-driver. Jumping in front of lasers. Stupid stuff.”

“You’re right. You sound like you were pretty messed up.”

“So what happened?”

He started as he realized she’d asked him a question and he’d totally forgotten about it.

“We think you fell on your own claws. And about three tonnes of concrete fell on you. Oh and you also suffered severe burns but those healed.”

“Oh. So not too serious then?”

“WHAT!”

“I’ve had every injury under the sun. Dislocated limbs, torn tendons, amputations, broken necks…”

“Broken neck **s**?”

“Three times. I think I was 13- that must have been it. I’d only just got my healing and I accidentally said ‘Sir, may I throw a wine bottle at you’ instead of ‘Sir, may I pass you a glass of wine’. I think that was in Latin. I’m not very good at it.”

“WHAT!”

“Shhh! You’ll wake everyone else up.”

“Oh yeah. Sorry. Forgot. But they broke your neck for messing up a single phrase…”

“I’d also accidentally on purpose alerted the FBI to the fact I’d been hacking their secret files for years.”

“Ouch.”

“Then I messed up a training exercise –that was the second time and called the Professor some of the…erm…choicer words I picked up from the guards –that was the third.”

“I bet that was some ripe language.”

“I think I managed to swear at him in over thirty languages. And I said ‘ _Wewe mafuta nguruw_ ’ which didn’t help my case at all.”

“What did you call him?”

“Translated it means ‘You fat pig’. It was the inventiveness he didn’t like. He was fine with me spewing out all this terrible stuff I was obviously just copying, but come up with an inventive insult of my own was neck breaking punishment. It was worth it to see him face though.”

“You thought having your neck broken was worth seeing some freak in a lab coat looking shocked?”

“Well I was bored. Sitting in a cold room for three days with nothing to do because your teachers are stuck in the snow is boring. Really, really boring.”

“You were bored so you took to chucking cheap insults…?”

“I was thirteen. Sometimes I’d forget myself and stopped acting as they deemed appropriate. I’d laugh or smile and they’d punish me.”

“How did you cope? Not go insane?”

“There was a guard who treated me like a real person. Used to play music outside the cell, chat to me, tell me about his kids. Dash of normalcy in a crazy world.”

“What on earth was he doing there if he treated you like that?”

“Admin-”

“-error. I think I was once sent on a mission to do something I’d rather not have done.”

“I thought there was nothing you’d not do.”

“Yeah well I wouldn’t do this. It’s not nice so I ain’t telling you what it was.”

She smiled slightly but he couldn’t help be feel that how they reacted to each other had changed. He wasn’t as protective of her, was seeing her more as an equal than someone to be looked after. She suddenly looked up and voiced the very thing he was thinking about.

“This isn’t like before. I’ve lost the feeling you’re like a father. You’re a friend. Just a friend. But I trust you. I haven’t been able to tell the others about all…that. You’re the only one who understands. I couldn’t show them the brand or the cuts. They’d be scared or pity me. You just listen.”

“Thanks.”

She reached out and touched his shoulder. A gesture of friendship she hadn’t been able to give before. She’d changed in the two months she’d been ignoring him. She was more human but with that slight suggestion that deep down an animal was curled up comfortably. That was the main difference between them. She accepted the animal and it fitted in with her, became a part of her. It was the human portion that caused her trouble. His animal wasn’t like hers. His was a beast that tried to dominate.

 

* * *

 

 

“So that’s when it all started?”

“Of course. But it started before that and after that and in a way it started when she was born.”

“You’ve been taking to Fate again haven’t you?”

“Of course. Some **friends** drop in before you do.”

“I had the entire population of the **universe** to process remember?”

“And I had the biographies of every single person, plus all the sub realties **and** the basic laws of Physics to file. I rearranged the Archives **eight** times before you turned up.”

“Time works differently, remember? I stayed away for eight days. Afterlife time.”

“Pff.”

 

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	15. Family

As with their split, no one other than Tora and Logan knew what had caused their sudden, stronger friendship. Someone would come down in the middle of the night and hear them talking quietly in the living room. In the Danger Room they’d fight back-to-back, becoming an unstoppable fighting force, using their enhanced senses and similar training to allow them to know what the other would do and compliment it at exactly the right time. It would be slightly scary for them both to go into a low crouch and then, whilst Wolverine launched himself at the enemy, Tigress would flip over backwards and land on its head. As soon as it was down they’d be back to back again, chatting about reading material or something stupid like that. When they were yelled at Tora had just turned her predatory golden eyes on them and said that the digital chips in her head really did most of the fighting and she could shut off connections between parts of the brain so she could multitask effectively. Logan had just told them he’d been doing it longer than anyone else in the room because the original X-Men team had only been founded seven years beforehand, in 1998*.The second team had been going for three years. He’d been doing what he did for much longer than that. At which point Tora coughed slightly and mentioned she’d been training years before that, back in the 80s. ‘87 to be precise. She’d managed to successfully stop that conversation. Probably it was the fact she’d been born about 1984 that did it.

And after training they disappeared into the computer room. People going in and out saw them sitting at terminals having arguments about whether to include New Orleans into the search. What search was a bit of a puzzler? Bets were going in thick and fast about what they were searching for. Course, no one wanted to be the one to ask. In the end the subject was tentatively raised at dinner. The answer had been nothing anyone had a bet on.

“We’re lookin’ for her family. Going through the birth records for the years she could have been born in, following them up, trying to find anything at all.”

“Why didn’t you ask for help?”

“Cos you can’t understand. Peter and Kitty have families, Kurt has his foster family, ‘Roro and Scott know what happened to their family and Scott has Alex. But me. I don’t know who my family are. Closest I’ve got are the Hudsons. Tora ain’t even got that. She’s been alone and I know what that’s like. No surnames, no clue to who we might be. Just a few empty words and a couple of scents. That’s all we have.”

She was sitting there quietly, head down slightly. Then she looked up quickly with that motion that was so catlike.

“I don’t want to continue. It hurts. We’ve already gone through all the Quebec and major French speaking areas of Canada. We’ve done New Orleans and countless other cities. I don’t care anymore. For all I know they sold me out when they found I was a mutant. And if I do find them they won’t want this. A scarred, broken warrior. They lost a child. They won’t want a woman who’s seen far too much and will always be looking over her shoulder.”

 

* * *

 

“But…”

“She’d been looking through all files, seeing children who grew up happily, had everything she’d lost out on. When you have nothing, even those who had very little seem much higher than you.”

 

* * *

 

Logan was walking past her room in the night when he heard the screams. He hesitated before knocking once and going in. She was writhing under the sheet, claws out. He heard the words she was crying in pain. Things about metal burning and freezing. Begging to be left alone. Screaming insults to people he couldn’t see but picture oh so well. Then she caught his scent and the thrashing stopped. She was still asleep, still in pain, but she relaxed. The screaming quieted to a low muttering. For the first time he properly looked around her room. It was blank, impersonal. The only suggestion that someone lived there were the book on the bedside table, a metal collar that caused him to snarl slightly and a coffee cup which Kitty had bought her with a cat on it. Her animal whine of pain remembered brought him back to reality. He’d known she had nightmares but so bad she screamed out like it was happening all over again? No, he hadn’t known. She threw back her head and howled loudly. Why weren’t the others coming to help? He hadn’t a clue how to help his friend from the demons in her head. In the end he reached out and caught her flailing hands. She still tried to pull away and he didn’t want to move in closer. But gradually she calmed down again and he felt better about leaving her to sleep.

When she woke the following morning she realized the night had been almost entirely nightmare free. Instead she’d dreamt she was running, running free and wild in the woods and there was no one to hurt her, trap her, pull her down. And for some strange reason Logan had been there too.

 

* * *

 

“She never stopped having the nightmares did she?”

“They lessened over time. But she never shook them of entirely. Sometimes they’d come back worse but overall she eventually got them under control. Other nightmares pushed them out the way.”

“Can we get onto the bit I really want to see?”

“You’re hopeless, Death, you know that?”

“That’s me darling.”

“DON’T call me **darling**!”

 

* * *

 

“Hello, Monsieur Circen, Madame Circen. My name is Ororo Munroe and I’m a student at the Xavier Institute. Until the lectures start, would you like to see the grounds?”

The lectures had been Stark’s idea. The leading researcher in genetic mutation Charles Xavier using his school to host lectures on human-mutant cohabitation. Various lecturers had been invited and most had accepted. Word had got around that Dr Henry McCoy, Avenger and former X-Man would be giving some talks. Maybe some of the X-Men would be there. And the Circens, the French mutant rights activists who were all completely human. All except for the daughter who had disappeared. For weeks the pictures of the toddler with a huge smile on her face as she tugged at the fur of a cat who seemed quite happy to be mauled by the child had been on the front pages of papers everywhere back in the eighties. But bigger and better news had pushed it out of the way. The other daughter, a fifteen year old raven haired girl looked like she was bored senseless.

Tora was the only student not giving selective tours but was weaving in and out of the crowds reading some of important documents and running errands for the Professor. Her hair had been pulled up in a tight ponytail that didn’t really suit her. There was a look of slight concentration on her face as she took in the statistics on the sheet, stepped neatly around people and absent-mindedly offered out drinks from the tray on the other hand. She’d gone and separated all the parts of her brain again to multi task effectively. However, Storm was quickly whisking the lecturers around the school.

“Over there is Scott Summers. He was one of the original students and brilliant at spatial geometry. Over there is Kurt Wagner, a gymnast. He used to work in a circus as a trapeze artist. Kitty Pryde, a fully certified genius. Can do almost anything with computers. Peter Rasputin is an amazing artist. I know Logan’s around here somewhere, he’s…well he can do quite a lot. And Tora’s helping the Professor I think. She’s a linguist.”

Logan suddenly shot past making a remark about rescuing Johnny Storm from Tora before he tried to flirt with her.

“What was that about, _Mademoiselle_ Munroe?”

“Tora will sit quietly listening to him and then go ‘Pardon?” in whatever language she’s learning at the moment. She doesn’t do relationships very well.”

“ _Pourquoi_ _?_ ”

“Speak English, Eloise.”

“Fine then. Why doesn’t she do relationships?”

Kurt suddenly arrived at Ororo’s shoulder.

“Are we talking about Tora? She may be a genius at languages but she can’t hold a decent conversation for _karamelle_.”

“That isn’t her fault, Kurt. You haven’t had to hear her nightmares. Some of the stuff she screams is…horrific.”

“What happened?”

The two X-Men glanced at one another. They couldn’t exactly tell the Circens that Tora had been tortured, beaten and turned into a living weapon. In the end they settled for the closest thing to the truth.

“She grew up in care homes where she was abused. She still has some of the scars.”

“ _Pauvre fille_ _._ ”

“She doesn’t talk about it. She’d rather everyone forget about it. Logan’s the only one she talks about it too.”

“Why does she ignore it?”

“She finds it easier. She refused the therapy when offered it. I think she had to become detached from others. At any rate she has a habit of wandering off in the middle of conversations or hopping from one thing to another.”

All five turned to look at the young woman whose brow was now furrowed as Logan tried yet again to explain that the blond man she’d been talking to was trying to hit on her. He was saved from her questions by Beast bounding exuberantly up to the platform to begin his talk.

“Greetings. I feel most welcome back at my old place of learning whence I once studied hard and probably cheated in lots of tests with my partners in crime. That was before all my escapades with the X-Men and Avengers of course. Well-”

Hank launched into one of his lectures with lots of long words and scientific terms. Tora sat completely still, committing the entire talk to memory and probably also translating the whole thing into twelve different languages as well. She was nearest the door so she was the first to hear the people outside. Therefore when the people burst in with anti-mutant banners it was to see a petite woman with a slight smile on her face dropping reams of paper onto the floor. You couldn’t blame them for laughing when she asked them to leave politely. And when she wasn’t so polite you couldn’t blame them for running. A 5 foot 4 martial artist who seemed to have experience dealing with multiple foes at once is rather scary. Especially when they saw her eyes. Eyes with slits for pupils that widened playfully when she saw their fear. She dealt with them so quickly no one had the heart to intervene. After all she’d spent the whole day trying to be something she wasn’t. She turned round when the last one had run screaming like a baby out the door.

“Mr Stark, I thought you had hired security?”

“I did. Can I hire you? Where did you learn that?”

“When you grow up like I did, you learn to fight. And I already have a job.”

She sat back down, oblivious to the fact all the gazes at the meeting were now on her and rearranged her notes. Most of the people in the room were wondering who the girl was and what her upbringing had been that meant she could take on an anti-mutant mob single-handed. Ororo saw the Circens frown at one another. Then he leant forward and asked to meet Tora.

The rest of the talks went without a hitch. When it was over Tora was approached by Ororo leading a middle aged couple and a teenager over to her.

“Ororo?”

“Tora, will you meet the Circens. Henri Circen, Esme Circen and Eloïse.”

“ _Bonjour, Monsieur, Madame Circen. Et salut Eloïse._ ”

None of them answered. The woman leant in and looked at her closely.

“Henri, I think it’s her.”

“ _Pardon?_ ”

The man looked at her, taking in the black streak in fiery red and then looked at her eyes.

“ _C’est sa! Esme, c’est sa!_ ”

Tora backed away slightly in confusion. Her lips opened and closed slightly.

“ _Pardon Monsieur, Madame? Qu’est-ce-que…?_ ”

“Marie. Marie is that you? Please let it be you.”

“ _Pardon? Madame, je ne pas compris…_ ”

“It is you Marie. I’d know your eyes anywhere. _Cherie_ where were you? All this time… Don’t you remember us? Oh, Marie what did they do to you?”

Tora’s eyes were widening, her face showing an expression of pain, confusion and maybe, just a little bit of comprehension. Stuttering out a word she had held close all this time.

“ _Maman?_ ”

Suddenly she turned and ran, trying hard to get away from things that were hammering on the barriers thrown up around her. Logan came running over.

“What’s wrong with Tora?”

Storm was just looking slightly dumbstruck.

“Tora? Is that what you call her? She isn’t Tora. She’s Marie. Our daughter Marie.”

Logan swore.

“You went and told her that straight out didn’t you? She’s lost and confused and she’d just got it all under control then you come barging in and shatter everything she’s built up.”

And without another word, the feral mutant went charging after his friend.

 

* * *

 

 

“She is extremely messed up.”

“Death, shut up. Do you want to be expelled for excessive talking just as we reach the point you’ve been dying to see ever since you turned up?”


	16. Accident

Logan tracked her to a clearing in the woods. He moved towards her, until he was close enough to see her shoulders shaking. It was only when he got closer that he heard the large gulping breaths she was taking.

“Tora?”

She turned and he saw her face was soaked with tears. She voiced the question he couldn’t answer.

“How? How can they be here? After all the searching, they just drop out of the sky and ruin everything.”

“You’re crying.”

“Stupid isn’t it. Haven’t cried in years. And then they turn up and I can’t stop.”

He reached out and tried to comfort her. She was scared and alone and afraid of what was being offered to her. He looked into the golden eyes, the eyes that were the only ones that could meet his and see the animal and not look away, and saw the last of the barriers drop away and he could fully understand why she put them up in the first place. They were an ocean of emotion. She felt so deeply, so completely she was forced to shield those she loved from the storms within. Every single piece of pain and hurt and betrayal was swept up in those eyes and squeezed out in the form of salty tears.

And then he felt the emotion in those eyes pull him in and he was kissing her, inhaling her unique scent of mint and coffee. At first she stiffened and he thought he was about to die with a bunch of spilled guts. Then, slowly, tentatively, she began to respond, like a nervous teenager. And that was what caused him to break contact.

“Logan?”

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Logan? Why not?”

“Because you’re twenty and I’m who knows how old. Because you don’t know what you’re doing and I should know better. Because we’re supposed to be friends.”

“It didn’t stop you loving Jean, did it?”

He started at that.

“Who told you about that?”

“It’s obvious. Anyone mentions her name and your heartbeat goes through the roof. I’m not blind, no matter how much you want me to be. I’m not a child, even if that’s how you see me. But you’re right. I don’t know what I’m doing. Why can’t I control my heartbeat near you? Why do my hormone levels change? Why does my stomach feel like I’m about to throw up? What’s wrong with me that means the animal tries to take control every time you walk past? What’s so wrong with me that you feel like that one kiss was so terrible?”

He looked at the woman who was now crying even harder. But she was angry as well. Angry at him and the Circens and the world in general that had hurt her so much.

“It wasn’t terrible. That’s the point. You’re closer in age to Kurt or Piotr-”

“Kurt and Piotr are like brothers. And I can’t relate to them properly. You’re the only one who understands. The only one who understands this!”

She pulled her trouser leg up to reveal the brand again.

“The others can’t talk properly to me. There’s always the fear of what was done to me, the pain that is me. But you understand. At least, I thought you did. But then you have to go and kiss me and confuse me and then back off.”

“Tora, please-”

“You have to make a choice now. Pretend this never happened or-”

“I’ll take the ‘or’. And you know it.”

And then he kissed her again, brushing her lips and then wiped away her tears with his sleeve.

“Come on, sweetheart. Better get back up to the mansion. And if the other asks, that never happened.”

“Why?”

“Cos Kurt will make our lives misery.”

“Oh. And don’t call me sweetheart.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, how romantic.”

“Don’t you have other things to do; the sarcasm is dripping from your voice.”

“Actually I should get back. I trust Reave but enough to leave him in charge? See you, darling.”

“Tell Phoenix to come round when she has time.”

The dark woman faded away, leaving the other to her musings. Finally. Tora learnt to cry. She learnt to love and to cry and now, finally she was fully human. With all their failings and pitfalls.

 

* * *

 

When she walked back up to the mansion she’d managed to stop doing her water fountain impression but was still looking rather red eyed. Inside her heart was singing, every nerve on fire. But none of this was conveyed to those watching. The barriers were back up, but not as strongly as before. She looked up and saw the Professor and the other X-Men with the Circens.

“Tora, would you mind coming into my study?”

Her golden eyes met his blue and she nodded once. Then she looked at the others. Her friends.

“Can the others come as well? I don’t want to do this alone.”

“Tora?”

“Please, Professor. Charles…”

He looked slightly annoyed then nodded.

“Thank you.”

The office was slightly crowded with one wheelchair, seven X-Men and a family of three. Tora refused a chair when offered it but stood head slightly down, like a child caught in wrongdoing. Then she looked up with a fierce look in her eyes.

“Before we start I’d like to say something. I don’t remember being Marie Circen and if I once was then you should know she’s dead. I was recreated. I had to do it to survive. If I was Marie then I died and Xii was born. She may still be in here somewhere but if she is then she’ll have broken years ago. Xii survived through pure luck and hiding inside shields. No child could live through what I did. I wasn’t a child. I never was.”

“Xii?”

“Ororo has told me the story she told you. If you are Tora –Marie’s parents then you have the right to know the truth. The X-Men brought her here six months ago after they found her starving and half dead in some sort of facility where she has spent the last eighteen years of her life. Until she was fourteen she was trained to be some sort of living weapon-”

“I was trained to be an assassin, a spy and a saboteur.”

“-Thank you for that input Tora. At age fourteen she had the metal adamantium bonded with her bones. Would you care to show them?”

Metal claws chikted into position. Slight gasps of pain and realization that what Xavier said was true masked the noise of them being sheathed back into her hands.

“They then attempted to turn her into the perfect weapon by making her kill a man. She refused and was sold to Victor Creed, a man more commonly known as Sabretooth. She spent six years in his keep before being rescued in December.”

“Why did they bring her here?”

“Because the Xavier Institute is a school for mutants.”

“More to the point, what did they do to her? She doesn’t recognize us at all.”

“My memory was wiped when I was taken. I assume I was taken.”

“What did they do to you?”

“Ya don’t wanna know.”

“You’re…Logan, right?”

“Yep. Seriously, you don’t want to know the state she was in when she came here.”

“Why are you here? The others I can understand but you don’t look like a youngster to me.”

“I’m protection.”

“Logan, that’s cruel. How many times have we saved your life?”

“Three. Compared to twelve times for you, eight for ‘Ro, three for Petey, nine for Scott and once for Tora.”

“That transfusion doesn’t count.”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, it doesn’t. Because it was your fault in the first place.”

“My fault?”

“You didn’t stick to the plan.”

Their argument with grins on their faces was interrupted by Esme Circen.

“What do you mean, transfusion?”

The X-Men glanced at one another.

“When you have eight knifes in your hands, accidents are bound to happen.”

Tora smiled gratefully at Xavier.

“Logan’s mutation meant his blood was the only thing to stop her bleeding.”

“I normally heal. It’s just my claws stop me healing.”

“ _Tu cicatrises?_ ”

Tora glanced around then picked up the Professor’s letter opener.

“Tora, what are you doing?”

Before any of them could stop her she brought the sharp edge down her arm in a single fluid motion. Blood spurted and she grimaced in pain.

“Think I severed a major artery.”

She held her cut arm close to her body, hoping it would stop quickly. Then she extended it again to reveal a scab that faded to a scar and then disappeared completely.

“ _Oui. Je cicatrise_.”

“Tora, you shouldn’t do that as you well know.”

Golden eyes met Xavier’s and she shrugged.

“I never really learnt not to hurt myself. If I damaged myself they wouldn’t make me train.”

“You hurt yourself?”

“Look, people can’t understand. Unless you’re the same and have the pain in your heart and bones all the time then you can’t understand. If you haven’t had your organs removed to see how fast they grow back, then you can’t understand. I live with all that and all the pain that’s still there but it doesn’t rule me. I rule the pain. I am pain. But I live because I have people who care. I chose to survive because if I die, if I give in, then they win.”

She turned and walked out. Just before she shut the door she looked back in.

“I was never human, mutant or animal. I was just a weapon. I’m trying to change that. Don’t try and stop me. Don’t try and help me. I need to do this alone.”

 

* * *

 

 

Still so many doubts about herself. She was human but now she doubted. But doubts were part of being human. She was desperate to escape her past but she did it in her way. She hated owing debts.


	17. Becoming

Logan’s eyes narrowed in the bright Provençal noon. He didn’t want to be here, alone with Tora, but reports of Sabretooth near her family’s home had caused her to beg him to come. He still didn’t know his exact feelings towards her. Their relationship wasn’t physical. They spent more time talking than doing any of the usual stuff couples did. They couldn’t really. He didn’t want the others to know. It wasn’t like Mariko although that hadn’t worked out. It wasn’t even like Jean. Instead it was…he didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t like anyone he’d met. Or to be more precise she wasn’t like anyone he remembered meeting. So fragile yet so strong. Broken yet unbreakable.

Her parents came rushing out and hugged her. She didn’t hug them back. In the month since she’d found out who she really was, she’d become much quieter, retreating into herself. She spent more and more time outside, especially when it was raining. She’d sit in down by the lake, legs curled under her and hum that tune she seemed to love. Over and over again. He asked her why she loved it when the words were so sad. And she’d smiled and said sometimes you needed just a little sadness in your life to appreciate the good times. Then they’d brushed lips and sat for the rest of the night talking.

They showed him the guest room then taken her to the room that had once been hers. It was as different from her room back in the States as possible. Whilst that was all cool, dark colours this room was decorated in warm pastels. It was the girl she had been, not the woman she now was. The happy child with a family and hope, not the scarred woman with fears and little chance of a real life. That girl had died, replaced by someone who had to hide behind walls of steel to feel safe. She looked lost and alone on the brand new bed that had been bought for her visit. No matter how she’d tried to explain that she wasn’t the same person, they ignored her. His eyes met hers and she mouthed ‘Later’ and jerked her head towards the window, towards the woods that surrounded the secluded villa deep in the heart of Southern France. So he’d went back to his room and found Eloise standing outside. She looked lonely so he asked her what was wrong. He hadn’t expected the outpouring of the soul.

“I don’t know why Maman and Papa had me. All they wanted was their Marie back. Their precious Marie. The red-haired baby who laughed and giggled, not a sullen _enfant_ who never really put down roots. And she’s not at all like they described her.”

“Eloise, your sister’s had a difficult childhood. Think about it this way. Your life can’t have been worse than hers. I’ve seen some of the scars she has and they ain’t pretty. But what’s worse is how her mind was messed with. For a while after she came she’d flinch if we moved too suddenly. She’d obey any commands we gave her as if her life depended on it. You may not have had a lot of love but you’ve been fed and I bet your parents have never raised a hand to you. Well Tora –Marie as you call her –she was almost beaten to death when she was five. When she came to stay with us, she was so thin you could see her ribs. And for six years she’d been in the –I won’t call it care –possession, of Victor Creed who’s one of the most twisted, evil, foul mutants you’ll ever meet. She’d eaten what she had to survive and she was still half dead when she was found.”

Eloise looked slightly shocked at she managed to put what Logan was saying into perspective.

“ _Mais_ she still was rescued by _le_ X-Men. I’d do anything to meet Nightcrawler. He’s so cool. And Storm…”

Suddenly a look of comprehension dawned on her face.

“ _L’Institute_ …”

Logan put a finger to his lips and grinned. The kid was smart. Then he snikted out one of his claws.

“ _Vous êtes le Carcajou, vous êtes Wolverine._ ”

Then she looked even more excited, if that was possible

“ _Marie est Tigress, correctement?_ ”

He didn’t speak much French. German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, yep he could hold his own in any conversation. But French? He knew enough to understand what she was saying and how to answer.

“ _Oui.”_

There was a look of pure delight on her face.

“It’s our secret, OK?”

“ _D’accord, c’est nous secret. Mais c’est tellement cool!_ ”

“ _Qu’est-ce-que c’est ‘tellement cool’ Eloïse?_ ”

Tora was standing there looking slightly amused.

“ _Vous êtes Tigress_.”

“ _Tu, pas vous Eloïse. Apres tout, c’est sœurs. Et c’est vrai, je suis Tigress._ ”

Logan was now beginning to feel a little left out by all this conversing in rapid French.

“Will somebody translate please?”

Tora turned with a slight look of embarrassment on her face.

“ _Désolé._ Sorry Logan. I forgot. You wanted to go for a walk?”

“I’ll come!”

They both bit their lips. They hadn’t had a proper chance to be alone for a while. First there had been some trouble with Magneto but that had turned out to be an impostor. Then they’d teamed-up with the Avengers to bring down a rampaging robot in Manhattan. Spider-Man had shown up but he hadn’t been needed. At any rate, it had been a good time to introduce Tora to those who didn’t know her. And since they’d arrived here on a commercial flight (the Blackbird being out of commission again), they’d been surrounded by a series of relatives, all of whom wanted to see the miraculous return of the stolen child. He wanted some time alone with her and he could see she felt the same way. And now her teenage sister wanted to go with them.

“Eloise…”

Suddenly the girl’s eyes widened and she appeared to suppress a giggle.

“Oh. So I take it you two X-Men want some time alone to ‘train’, _oui?_ ”

Somehow she knew. Somehow she’d seen through all their layers of pretence and guessed about them. But no one, not even Chuck had guessed. That was one astute kid.

“ _Merci beaucoup Eloise_.”

They hurried outside, across the hot drive outside and into the cool shade the trees provided.

“That’s one clever kid.”

“Yes. But I don’t think she’s very happy.”

“She seems to think her parents cared more about you –or their vision of you –than her.”

She sighed and let the layers of protection slip away from her eyes and stance. Now she was walking with a lighter tread, almost stalking. She didn’t even do that with the other X-Men. It was when with him, and him alone that she let her animal out. And it was a proud and powerful animal, like the tigress she took as her name. When she was like that she became grace and power personified. It was in those moments she looked beautiful. Most of the time she was standing next to Storm and few men would ever see the small, slight, almost masculine figure next to the beautiful, exotic Ororo. She camouflaged herself effectively, hiding in plain sight. Late development had meant she’d never be ‘well-endowed’ in the chest area but she didn’t seem to mind. Her body was more muscle than anything else and as far as he knew, she resisted all Kitty’s attempts to allow a razor near her legs. Something about the hair being a natural part of her mutation, allowing her effective insulation from the cold. At any rate, her arms, whenever he actually saw them, had a layer of dark hair, nowhere near as thick as his, but obvious. She didn’t pay much attention to her appearance. There was something refreshing about her hatred of changing her looks to pander to standards of beauty. But then, she didn’t seem to care about beauty. She’d learnt the hard way that looks didn’t matter. When people hurt you, you don’t care what they look like.

They walked together in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. That was another thing that was different about her. She could make silence as good as words. A lot of things could be said in their periods of silence. He moved towards her, wrapped his arm around her waist and she leant her head on his shoulder. She was about the same height as him but nowhere near as stocky. They continued to walk like that for a long time before anyone spoke.

“Are you afraid?”

She turned her golden eyes that glimmered with fear to his glacial blue.

“What do you think Logan? I still have nightmares.”

He’d heard her screaming in the night. But he’d never given in to the temptation to go in and chase the nightmares away. He might end up being the worse nightmare if he lost control. Partially because she was different from all the others he didn’t want to ruin it by rushing their relationship. And in some ways she was so childlike.

“If Creed attacks, are ya going to fold?”

“Logan. I may be scared of him but don’t you dare suggest fear will stop me fighting.”

She pulled away. He should have learnt by now. She was fine as long as you didn’t show doubt at her fighting skills. If anything, fear would make her more dangerous. She seemed annoyed at him though and he just waited when she walked off. She’d need a little time to get it out of her system. When she came back she didn’t move in to return to their prior position but stood slightly away from him. He could only assume he’d hurt her deeper than he’d thought.

“There are tracks in the wood. And Creed’s scent everywhere.”

“Here?”

“Yeah. I’ll show you.”

She walked quickly, moving through the woods although without her usual grace. He could only assume fear made her like that. When they reached the clearing he gaped. There had been a fight here. Blood was everywhere and it smelt of Creed and …Tora? He turned just in time to see her fist come out of nowhere and slam into his face, knocking him unconscious.

 

* * *

 

 

The woman sighed slightly. Of course he thought it was her. In a way it was.


	18. The Other

She was smiling cruelly at him when he woke up.

“Tora…?”

“Oh, I’m not Tora. She is.”

He looked to where she was pointing and struggled against the chains that were holding him. Tora, the real Tora, was being held up by one arm, Creed twisting it almost 180 degrees. She raised her head and he saw the cuts and bruises of a bad beating just beginning to fade.

“My thanks, Runt, for bringing my little pet back.”

Her eyes were dark with fear and sorrow. When she spoke, she was in obvious pain.

“Logan. Sorry. Didn’t smell them coming.”

“Shut up, you piece of trash!”

Suddenly she was dangling from one of his huge hands, claws digging into her neck; blood welling up so Logan could smell it.

“You look a lot better than you did seven months ago. I’ll enjoy this.”

She was trying to fight, trying and failing desperately. The other woman, the one who looked and smelt like her walked over and hit her in the stomach.

“You’re nothing. Just an imitation of me. You’re a clone. A shadow of the real Marie. And that’s me.”

Tora was trying harder to get away, animal rising to the surface in panic. She struck out at Creed, claws catching in his clothes.

“Gotta try harder than that, frail.”

The woman who claimed to be the true Tora laughed at the other woman’s obvious pain as Sabretooth’s claws dug deeper into her windpipe.

“Leave her for later. I’ll watch them. You go and deal with…the plan.”

Creed grinned, then threw Tora across the room so she landed limply at Logan’s feet. Her eyes, that almost looked defeated, bore into him. How could Creed do this to her? He’d already shattered her confidence. And now he was threatening to hurt her even more. When he’d left to put whatever plan he was doing into action the other woman strutted over.

“Wolverine, I assume. Such a pity all you ever saw was my shadow. I was Weapon X-ii, the success. That there was a failure. But what would you expect of a clone? They gave her adamantium as well and not just in her claws. No, she got the full skeleton. What a joke. Such a pity.”

Now he was closer he could see all the differences between her and his Tora. She’d put on make-up while he was out. She hadn’t changed her clothes though but he could bet when she wasn’t disguised as his Tora, she’d wear something revealing. And the eyes were bitter and harsh while hers were shielded but caring. Suddenly Tora’s hand snaked out and she tugged the other woman over. By now her injuries had healed and she quickly sliced through his chains. Then the other woman hit him and he blacked out for a second. When his senses cleared he panicked. The two women were now both covered in blood; both had smooth metal claws out. And he couldn’t tell the difference. Both smelt of Creed. He didn’t dare fight when he could injure his sort-of-girlfriend. Not that it was really official or anything. More a sort of understanding.

The two were equal as injuries from their claws didn’t heal. One swung out and missed, the other brought her hand down over the right side of the first’s face, splattering the black strip of hair with scarlet. The injured one howled then struck out, sending the other flying. The downed woman looked up at Logan with pleading golden eyes.

“Help me.”

That sank it. He struck out at the woman at his feet, pinning her down. The blood-soaked woman looked at him with a grimace of pain.

“How did you know I was me?”

“You asking for help? Give me a break.”

“Congratulations, girl. Managing to beat your clone like that. I’m impressed.”

The woman pinned between Logan’s arms screamed.

“LIAR! I AM THE FIRST! I AM THE TRUE ONE!”

Creed was smiling, like he was enjoying the show.

“Actually, you were the clone. I had a…friend edit your memory and brain pattern. It’s a pity only claws were adamantium. I could have done with some for fightin’ the runt.”

Logan slammed his captive’s head down to knock her out and followed Tora into the attack on Creed. He felt quite happy she was so defensive of him,

“LOGAN IS NOT A RUNT, YOU OVERGROWN-”

At this point she was winded with a blow to a stomach so whatever she thought Creed was, she didn’t get a chance to say. He sort of wished she’d had time to finish the comment. But by now the adrenalin was pushing intelligible thought out of the way. There was just dodging and striking, two-on-one animal brawling. But she was having trouble seeing, the blood from her mutilated face dripping into her eyes, throwing her vision into turmoil. In the end she had to pull back to try and stop the bleeding. In the end Creed decided it would be easier to run. When Logan turned he saw all the bleeding from her fight with the clone.

“Cut them out.”

She was looking at him with the single eye he could see. And he understood. She yelped as he tried to carefully cut her skin. He didn’t want to do this. She’d had enough pain but if he didn’t do this she’d have even more scars. But when he came to her face he knew he couldn’t help her. The cuts went to the bone so he could see the dull metal of her skull. They had pierced into her mouth. He couldn’t cut away the contamination without hurting her too much. At least the cuts were clean. Four parallel lines, from forehead to jaw, cutting over the brow but somehow managing to miss the eye.

“You need a proper doctor to see to this.”

She nodded slightly and he realized it couldn’t be as bad as falling on her own claws. Then she turned and gave a cat-like hiss.

“She’s gone.”

He turned and saw a trail of red dots peppered on the ground. They both began to follow the scent, injuries forgotten. It was when they heard the scream they realized what had happened.

“Eloise!”

She pushed past him and ran faster than he thought possible. She may not be close to her parents but she’d come to like her younger sister. He hadn’t known exactly why until he’d talked to her earlier. She was smart and in some ways very grown up. But when he got to the point in the woods and saw her confusion at seeing two of her sister, one bleeding from numerous injuries, the other with her face torn open it hit him she was 15. The same age as Kitty. She’d obviously been attacked and now the two women were fighting. Only this time it was different. It wasn’t testing each other’s limits, pushing then retreating. This was a proper fight with both knowing how the other fought and both determined to beat the other. One desperate to protect, the other to lash out and hurt. But now he knew which was which. He dived in to help her and the other her ran yelping, like a wounded dog. He was all for going after her but Tora was trying to pick up Eloise and go back.

“We need a doctor for her. Please, Logan; I need help on this one.”

So typically her. She was incapable of asking for help for herself but she needed help with her sister. So he dropped the chase and helped her carry her sister back to the house where there was a lot of screaming, accusations thrown and panic.

 

* * *

 

 

She watched in silence as Tora absorbed the pain of having her face stitched up. She couldn’t exactly tell the doctor the painkillers didn’t work. She’d insisted on having Logan there. She gave the reason that the doctor she normally went to would want to know exactly what was used and she wasn’t in a fit state to remember. Their fingers had interlaced and the doctor hadn’t noticed. They’d got back and the stitches had been rejected. But by then the flesh had begun to knit together. She wore a power suppressor for as long as she dared before she began puking up from adamantium poisoning. And also watched the movies suggested by the other X-Men. Then she’d walked out into the pouring rain. The woman smiled slightly and reached up to her mask. Slender fingers traced over the carved ice.

 

* * *

 

Logan was walking out in the rain. Her hair was plastered to her head and she was looking upwards into the clouds. She turned and he saw the left side of her face first. The unblemished side. Then she turned to look at him fully and he saw the scars. Nothing anyone could do would get rid of them. They weren’t like normal scars. The skin was perfectly unchanged until the sudden dark lines that now dominated her face. The edge of her mouth was twisted around the first scar. All four had ruined any chance of her ever leading a normal life without an image-inducer on permanently. And he knew her fierce animal pride wouldn’t allow that. She was too like him in that respect.

“Shouldn’t you come in? It’s chuckin’ it down.”

“I love the rain. It makes me feel alive. There never used to be rain.”

She stretched a hand up to the heavens to catch the water then let it trickle away through her fingers.

“But it’s polluted. All the water smells of acid and smoke and humanity.”

She looked sad. He knew she hated the scents of cars and smoke. She spent a lot of time outside, just sitting or standing in the rain or sun. For some reason she now avoided the mansion, only spending time there to eat, sleep and train. She turned her eyes on him. Now, whenever she was alone with him the barriers would drop. It was partially because she trusted him to be able to let them down, partially a need for someone to understand. He couldn’t help but shudder at the mutilation of a face that would have been beautiful. If it hadn’t been for the age in the eyes that shouldn’t have been there. For a short while the promise had been there. That if, in a few years, she was able to put her past behind her, something beautiful would have appeared, like a butterfly from a cocoon. But a single mistake had destroyed that. One second of hesitation from driving her claws into a living, beating heart and no amount of surgery would ever hide the scars.

“It troubles you doesn’t it?”

She had no trouble reading him now. She knew when to back off and when to push a point. She was pretty much the only X-Man who dared to look him in the eye. And tell him straight to his face when he started being obnoxious. And then didn’t run away.

“Come on. Slim wants you to get a physical just to make sure you’re OK to go.”

“Scott knows full well I’m fine.”

“Well we can go back in. Or just go for a walk?”

She smiled and slid out a hand. Scott was probably going to kill them but he threatened to kill them every other day so what was the difference? As soon as they were out of sight of the house he brushed the scars with one hand and noticed she flinched.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine. They’re just sore after that time with the collar.”

“I can’t believe you volunteered to wear that thing.”

“It was that or bleed on the carpet. And Charles is annoyed enough at me already.”

“What did you do to annoy him?”

“I sort of used the banister as a scratching post.”

“You mean the banister on the staircase that was original and has survived all the attacks on the mansion so far?”

“Sort of that banister. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know catnip had that affect on me. Neither did Kurt.”

“Great. My girlfriend goes crazy around catnip.”

She dropped his hand and stepped back a bit.

“Did you mean that?”

“What?”

“The girlfriend comment?”

He looked into the eyes that had a slight hint of fear in them. She thought he was teasing her. She was preparing for him to hurt her like she’d been hurt before only worse.

“Course I meant it. We’re a couple OK?”

She smiled weakly and he couldn’t help but kiss her.

 

* * *

 

 

A soft voice startled the woman out of her reverie.

“Death said you’d missed me.”

“Hello, Phoenix.”

“You know to call me Jean.”

The red hair, green-eyed woman in a white costume stepped into the light.

“I’m sorry about the whole burning away the universe thing. It’s how I work, remember? Just like it’s your job to try and stop me.”

“It’s fine, Jean. I knew it was going to happen. Frankly I’m amazed you took so long. Everything was going stagnant.”

“You’ve changed since we last met. Have you become bitter?”

The woman turned to look at her ‘sister’. They were dark and light, fire and ice but they got on.

“How close are you to finishing the reserves in the Stores?”

“Close. Just enough left for some…pondering.”

Jean Grey-Summers, also known as Marvel Girl, Phoenix, Red, Jeannie and at a few down points in her life Dark Phoenix, Ravager of Worlds, but no one mentioned that if they were smart, sat beside the woman in black.

“You’re still getting upset about it aren’t you?”

“It’s fine for you. You chose to be Phoenix. I just got told I had to do this and I never got a chance to back out.”

“Yeah. I sort of know what you mean. Do you mind if I…?”

“Sit down, enjoy the party. You’re about to come back as it is.”


	19. Renaissance

They were sitting on a log by the lake, close to one another, but with enough space between them to dart apart if anyone came within sight of them. They were always careful when people could see them. Him out of fear of what the others would say; her out of a need to have something precious to keep to herself. He looked at her, with her golden eyes gazing into the distance.

“We could do more couple stuff if you want us to?”

“Like what?”

“Go see plays, films. Go out to dinner together or something.”

She smiled that infuriating smile that made it look like she knew more than she was letting on.

“I think I’d like that.”

They both smiled slightly shyly at one another when a whiff of brimstone sent them to opposite ends of the log.

“Hey, Elf.”

“Logan…you have to come now! It’s…it’s…it’s-”

“What? Skrulls invading, Magneto blowing stuff up? What?”

“It’s Jean. She’s back!”

Logan was up faster than you could see.

“What do you mean ‘she’s back’?”

“I mean, the FF have just called and she’s on her way over NOW!”

“WHAT!”

Logan didn’t give him time to answer, he just ran back up to the mansion as fast as he could. Kurt sighed.

“Fraulein Tora, would you like me to escort you up to the house?”

She grinned and reached out a hand. There was a ‘BAMF’ of imploding air and both disappeared.

 

* * *

 

 

“How did she react to that?”

“She didn’t understand then. Not how he once felt. And how he still felt in a way. Would you mind me watching this from your point of view?”

“Go ahead.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jean looked around the mansion. The others were all coming out, laughing, crying and generally acting as though all their Christmases had come early. Ororo had pulled her into a hug and she’d seen Scott standing slightly apart with a huge smile on his face.

“So Scott, Charles, Ororo, Piotr and Kitty are here. Where are Kurt and Wolverine?”

Half her question was answered when Logan burst into the hall looking slightly out of breath. Then a brimstone stench made her nose wrinkle and she saw Kurt. Whose arm was being held by a short redhead with her back to her. She was wearing jeans and a loose checked shirt and her orangey-red hair fell straight down to the small of her back. A black streak ran down the right side of her head. She turned and the first thing Jean fixed on were the scars. Four of them, running down her face to her jaw. Then she saw her wide-spaced eyes and almost- almost- recoiled. The golden irises were slightly outsized for her eyes and her pupils were slits, like a cat’s. But as she watched they enlarged, becoming more rounded but still not fully circular.

“Kurt, remind me never to bamf with you again.”

“Of course, Tora. Next time you may walk.”

“Logan beat us here, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Kurt didn’t answer because he’d just seen Jean.

“ _Fraulein!_ ”

And Jean was suddenly being hugged by the damp mutant who now smelt of wet dog.

“ _Excusez-moi, mais_ who is this?”

 Everyone turned to look at the new mutant in slight shock.

“ _Désolé,_ but nobody talks about her. You all go shifty when I ask.”

“I’m Jean Grey, one of the original X-Men. I’ve…er…been away for a while. Who are you?”

“Tora. Properly I suppose I’m Marie Circen but I’m not very good at remembering that.”

Jean carefully reached out to see if she could find her mind and found…nothing? Until she found the tiny pinprick in the astral plain where the centre of the newcomer’s mind should be. Who was this person who wasn’t even slippery like the few people with natural telepathic shields? She just wasn’t there at all. Then something she’d said registered.

“You’re Marie Circen? Where have you been the last 18 years?”

The golden-eyed woman’s gaze met hers and she felt like a predator was staring her straight in the face.

“I go by the name of Tora. And as for where I’ve been? You don’t want to know.”

This person of so many secrets turned and walked out of the mansion, back into the pouring rain.

 

* * *

 

 

“When I first met her I wondered why on Earth Charles had allowed her into the mansion.”

“That was before you found out, wasn’t it?”

“You can imagine how terrible I felt when she finally told me about her past.”

 

* * *

 

 

Ororo, Kitty and Jean were going out to catch up on things Jean had missed when the Phoenix Force had been masquerading as her.

“Is Tora coming, Ororo?”

Jean glanced round. She wasn’t certain she wanted the newcomer to the mansion going out with her. There were so many unknowns about her. She also seemed to be distant and imperious, with her scars and aged eyes. It was like she’d been looking at Jean and saying “I know more than you do. I’ve done more than you’ll ever do. I’ve seen more than you could ever dream of seeing.”

“Hey, Tora! We’re going out! Do you want to come?”

Curse that child.

“I am afraid I cannot come, Kitty. I planned to train tonight and I also offered to help Logan strip down his bike. And your companion doesn’t like me very much.”

Jean stared at this intruder into life with the X-Men.

“How do you know that?”

“Your body language suggests disdain for me and your fight or flight hormone levels flair up when you see me. It suggests you wish to fight me because I am an interloper into your group.”

And without bothering to listen to a reply, the infuriating woman walked off towards the Danger Room. Jean glowered after her.

“Why on Earth is she with the X-Men?”

Kitty immediately leapt to the defence of the woman she’d known longer.

“Tora’s great. She just doesn’t relate to people well. And with what happened to her, it’s amazing she’s not a homicidal manic.”

“What did happen to her then, ‘Ro?”

“I’m sorry, Jean, but that’s Tora’s story and I wouldn’t tell it without her permission.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I didn’t realize how you felt about her when you returned.”

“I’m ashamed of it now. But she was someone I didn’t know, an exotic woman with all those scars and those eyes and I kept thinking, what if Scott fell in love with her?”

“She never saw herself as beautiful. She saw things in animal terms. She wasn’t a mate to be desired because she had been injured badly. But because she had survived those things, she was a mate to be desired. It was a matter of weighing up the permanent injuries with how she’d survived them.”

“I used to fear her animal instincts. Until I realized people didn’t talk about them. Just like they didn’t talk about Phoenix. She didn’t fear it. Probably because the animal saw there was nothing to fear.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jean could hear the noises from the Danger Room. Who was running it this late at night? She walked downstairs and looked into the control room. Warning lights were flashing. All the safety parameters had been switched off. She looked in and saw the new woman in an orange and black costume fighting robot versions of the original Brotherhood. She was perched on Blob’s head, counting things off on her fingers. Intrigued, Jean turned on the microphones.

“I can’t cook pork, Kitty doesn’t eat it. It’s probably best to go with steak because I know Logan likes that and Scott eats it…”

She leapt into the air just as Magneto sent a blast at her that missed and fried the Blob robot’s circuits. She was moving quickly now, kicking the Mastermind robot in the groin as she started listing vegetables. She was moving with a grace and power that Jean had never seen before. Actually, she had seen it once. On a nature program when they showed a tiger hunting. It was the same smooth flowing muscular motion, the same ruthlessness when she slammed her hands into the Quicksilver robot and removed a part that was apparently vital. Then the Scarlet Witch sent in hex bolt right into her chest and the woman fell. Only to struggle back up and spun a kick that smashed into the robot’s face. Now she was going toe-to-toe with Magneto and listing the kitchen equipment she’d need. Suddenly she was twisted up into the air. But how when her uniform didn’t have any metal in it? Smooth metal claws slid out of the woman’s clenched fists and she slashed at the Magneto robot. That was how. She was just a Wolverine wannabe. But a good one. She was capable of destroying almost the whole Brotherhood. She twisted and her claws somehow managed to smash into Magneto’s helmet, shattering his circuitry and causing her to drop to the floor.

She landed neatly then without even looking up spat out the words,

“Enjoy the show?”

Jean turned on the speakers so she could hear her answer.

“Aren’t you just a wannabe Logan?”

The face surrounded in burnished black metal turned towards her.

“My handlers wanted me to be that. Not me.”

“Your handlers? What are you, a zoo exhibit?”

“I was less than that ,Miss Grey. You with your perfect life can’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t call my life perfect. I’ve been missing for two years and I’ve just found out the man I loved got married and divorced while I was away.”

“Whereas I live with poison in my bones and military knowledge in my head that was implanted when I was three. I’m sorry; your disappearance really puts my suffering into perspective.”

This blatant sarcasm annoyed Jean even more.

“So what did you suffer?”

The empty eye covers looked up at her and she knew behind them those golden eyes would be fixed on her unblinking.

“While you enjoyed your first mission with the X-Men, I was having my bones pumped full of poisonous metal. While you swanned around as Marvel Girl, I was in the hands of Sabretooth. When you lived a charmed life with your family, I was being tortured because I wouldn’t kill a man. While you chose this path, I’ve been steered down it since I was two years old.”

She gave a bitter laugh.

“Miss Grey, may I present Weapon X-ii. The perfect spy, solider, saboteur and assassin. The child who was tortured because she had one extra strand of DNA. But I haven’t suffered as much as you have, let’s hear your heart wrenching story.”

Jean was looking at the woman gazing up at her with a determined set in her mouth. Now she looked harder she could see the wariness in her stance, the fear that made her so dangerous. This was someone who had been torn apart and was picking up the pieces of her life and then she came in as if she owned the place, someone the others all liked and tried to exclude her. Of course she was upset and hurt that Jean tried to ignore her.

“I’m sorry. I…I…”

The other woman walked out, leaving Jean to deal with her feelings of confusion and anger.

“Why is this woman so cold?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Fire and ice those two.”

“Tell me about it. She just blew off all attempts to be friendly.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you she sensed Logan’s attraction to you?”

“They were going out at that point?”

“Oh, yes I forgot you didn’t know. Oops.”

 

* * *

 

She slammed her hands into the wall, leaving impressions of her fists. Stupid, beautiful woman, with her head of fire and green eyes and soft scent. The woman who Logan appeared to love. Why? But he’d never told her to her face that he loved her. It had always been talking about other stuff, like training or things they remembered. She couldn’t control the feelings inside her, the pure anger and confusion. She knew she was being stupid and she was acting on instinct about him but she couldn’t help it. The animal had looked around, found the male with the best traits for survival and the alpha personality and latched on. The more rational parts of her mind had simply followed on. It was an ancient instinct, the instinct to have the alpha male, the one who would survive. Only in her it was amplified by her very nature.

A knocking on the door sent her scurrying into the bathroom where she locked the door and turned the shower on full blast. It was Logan. She heard him come in and knew he was scenting the air to find out where she was.

“Tora, I know you’re not in the shower. Your coffee’s still hot.”

Stupid coffee. She knew she’d forgotten something.

“You’re avoiding me. Why?”

He heard her knock something over in the bathroom. Ever since Jean had come back she’d been edgy. And Jean didn’t seem to like her. Wait! Jean! Of course. She could tell his attraction to her hadn’t faded and she was distancing herself from him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And now she was hiding in the bathroom. Which was the sort of thing a teenaged girl would do.

“Have you been talking to Kitty again?”

“ _Non!_ ”

He heard more noises, like she’d tripped and knocked the shampoo over. At any rate, something that sounded quite rude in French was murmured.

“ _La menthè est…_ ”

“Come on, Tora. Please come out.”

“ _NON!_ ”

He dropped his voice, pleading now and hoping against hope no one would walk in on him begging Tora to leave the bathroom.

“Come on, Tora. You’re behaving like a teenager. I thought we could go out later and…”

He didn’t get any further. She opened the door and was glaring at him. Her eyes were narrowed and he could tell she wasn’t ready to believe him yet.

“ _Et Jean?_ ”

“Jeannie doesn’t even look at me, Tora. You know she’s eyes only for Slim.”

The sharp lines around her eyes softened and he knew in a few more seconds he’d win her over. He just had to be careful.

“And you heard me calling you my girlfriend.”

She smiled and he relaxed. He wasn’t going to end up mauled by a cheesed-off girlfriend.

“Just as long as there isn’t any catnip involved, I’ll be fine.”

He laughed.

“One of these days I’m going to see what happened when Kurt hid the cat toy in your room.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Even better.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Catnip?”

“You were never there when they tried it. Think big pussy cat on steroids with metal claws.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.”


	20. Confessions

It had been an almost perfect night. Jean had apparently caught Tora leaving but she’d answered the question of where she was going with a cursory “ _Sortir_ ”. Logan had left half an hour later and caught her up on his bike. He’d taken her to a Japanese restaurant he went to a lot and they’d talked about how they were together. She asked him about Jean and suddenly he’d found himself talking about the past he remembered. All the pain and blood and one-night-stands. And she’d listened and not judged and tried to comfort him when he remembered Mariko and Silver Fox. She hadn’t been angry or hurt that he wanted to talk about them. More she understood and let him get it all out. Then she’d given him directions to a park outside the city and they’d sat and watched the stars. Then a band of red fire burst through the sky, which was joined by a strip of green. And as these bands of light lit up the sky, he looked over and saw her mutilated face and realized it had happened again. He’d fallen in love with the wrong person. She wasn’t like the others. She had the adamantium, tough as nails exterior but inside she was hurting far too much. And she had a Past. Which deserved capitalisation.

She was gazing up into the sky when she felt him move closer. Five little words sent her reeling.

“I think I love you.”

And under the stars they kissed gently before getting up and going back to the mansion.

 

* * *

 

 

“I really was an obnoxious…”

“No profanities in the Library please.”

“Oh, I forgot your feelings about swear words.”

“She didn’t swear either. Other than that time when she was thirteen and had her neck broken for punishment.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Where has she been going the last few weeks, Chuck?”

“I’ve already told you, Logan, I can’t find Tora. And if she wants some time alone, then it’s her business.”

Logan snarled as he turned away. She’d been disappearing every weekend for two or three hours. She would just grab a coat and walk out, without telling anyone where she was going or what she was doing. He’d tried to worm it out of her, tried to get Kurt to worm it out of her, tried to get Charles to order it out of her. But to no avail. She’d just not answer the question or start talking rapidly in French to throw him off the scent. He was really contemplating French lessons. But “ _Je t’aime_ ” didn’t exactly require translation. She asked him once if she could tell the others about them but he’d said no and she’d dropped it.

This time he was going to follow her. She was his frail, even if she’d gut him if she heard him refer to her as that, and he was going to look out for her. She was walking fast, almost as if she knew she was being followed. She’d double back and go down alleys, all in an attempt to shake him off. And if he were a normal person, not a mutant with a highly developed sense of smell, he’d have lost her about eight times now. Then she turned into a building and Logan did a double take. A church. She was going into a church? OK, now he needed to talk to Kurt. But first he was going to get a drink.

 

* * *

 

 

“I never understood why she took to religion like that.”

“She needed help that Charles and the others couldn’t give and she saw how Kurt was so sure in his faith so she went along one week and well, she kept going back.”

“You’d think with her past, she’d be more atheist.”

“Actually it made her more theist. She sort of lost hope in humanity so she tried to find something better.”

 

* * *

 

 

Kurt was uncertain exactly why Logan wanted him to do this talk but he could understand why he out of all the X-Men had been asked to talk to her.

“Tora, Logan said you went to a church this week.”

She turned her golden eyes that had softened slightly since July.

“Why does that matter?”

“I was just wondering…why?”

“Because…because…I need something to hope for. A promise of something better than this.”

She gestured at herself with a slight hint of despair.

“And because they accept me as what I am. There was someone at the facility who used to talk to me. Treat me like I was more than a weapon. He used to quote parts of Scripture to me. And you…”

“Me?”

“You’re so sure. So happy. So I wanted to see what it was that made you, well, **you**. It was only supposed to be once but I ended up going back. They welcomed me. I don’t need an image inducer there. They know I’m a mutant. They think my face was damaged in an anti-mutant protest. I think I’ve found what I believe. It helps me cope with doubt about myself.”

Kurt smiled widely.

“Welcome to our faith, Tora.”

She smiled slightly at him and her eyes sparkled.

 

* * *

 

 

“She kept going didn’t she?”

“Yes. Every time she could. Which wasn’t very often when you continue to save the world.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was Christmas and Tora was just nearing the year mark with the X-Men. And her birthday was apparently just after that but she insisted they didn’t make a fuss about it. She claimed she didn’t have good memories of birthdays. She wouldn’t go into more detail than that except to hang her head and murmur something in French. Thankfully she’d got on better with Jean since that night on the hillside and had gradually warmed up to her so the two were now inseparable. You’d walk in on the three X-Women having a chat in the sitting room and be glared at until you left. Sometimes Kitty would be there to.

She stepped into the hall, feeling self-conscious in the Japanese kimono she’d found wrapped up outside her door in the morning. She had been prepared to wear her usual loose shirt and jeans but she had a sneaking suspicion someone had spent quite a lot on the dress, even if it wasn’t exactly her style. She was standing around, feeling like an idiot when Kurt stepped in and did a double take.

“One word, Kurt, and your tail will be hanging from the ceiling without you attached to it.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, Tora, I promise. I brought your present.”

“Thanks Fuzzy. I have yours somewhere. This stupid outfit doesn’t have any pockets. At least I added those pouches to my belt otherwise I’d go mad.”

“So I assume your…erm…unusual attire was a gift?”

“Well if a gift is something found wrapped up outside your room, then yes it’s a gift.”

Kurt gave one of his impish grins and she laughed back.

“Found it. It’s not very original but…”

Kurt opened the tiny packet to find a rosary, wooden beads looking as if they had been whittled away by a knife. Or by claws.

“You made this for me?”

“It’s not like I can get the Professor to buy your presents for me. So I improvised.”

“Open yours. I’m afraid it is second hand but I think you’ll like it.”

She flung her arms around him and brought him into an impulsive hug. Something she wouldn’t have done six months ago, no matter what.

“Kurt, _c’est belle_.”

A tiny silver cross hanging from a chain.

“A friend of mine gave it to me at the circus. He told me to pass it on.”

“Thanks, Kurt. I know it means a lot to you.”

“You mean a lot to all of us.”

The two friends stepped into the sitting room and there was a shocked silence. Tora hadn’t worn a dress since the first few days she had been here. That time undercover on a stake out at Stark Industries didn’t count. Apparently he couldn’t relax the rules on dress codes without it looking suspicious. She’d got very close to attacking him. She glared around the room.

“One word from anyone about this…”

She left the threat hanging in the air. Why, oh, why had she decided to wear this kimono? She slid the drawstring bag off her back and sighed.

“I think I have everyone’s present here. Since this dress hasn’t got any pockets, I had to resort to the bag.”

She noticed Logan shifting slightly. Ha! Got him.

Laughter and a lot of teasing ensured. Kitty was teased about two years back and wrecking the mansion, so of course Jean and Tora had to be filled in on that. As Tora was walking from one end of the room to another, Kurt ambushed her with a piece of mistletoe.

“ _Mien Fruends_ , I have succeeded in making Tora blush. I think we should all humiliate her further.”

The red flush sneaking up her face was enough to cause Piotr to lean over and peck her check, turning her crimson.

“Logan! Seeing as you’re officially single, will you help in our attempt to turn Tora red?”

Shifting slightly, Logan tried to look anywhere but at Kurt, who was grinning hopefully at him. It was all he could do to stop himself from striking out. He caught the slight smirk on Slim’s lips and decided he might as well play along. She was wearing the kimono he’d bought her. It suited her but he had a feeling she wouldn’t wear it often. She was too practical for that. Jean wore skirts, so did ‘Ro and Kitty but Tora never did. He leant forward to brush the scarred side of her face only for her to turn her face at the last second and catch his mouth with hers. He heard the gasps of astonishment from around the room but he decided to enjoy the moment. She rarely kissed him. It was normally the other way around. When she broke contact he looked into the golden eyes that were challenging him. Testing to see if he’d play it down or tell the truth.

“Well I don’t think Logan classes as single any more, Kurt.”

It was going to be OK. They weren’t going to make snide comments or try and hurt him about this.

“They are **so** not allowed to be alone together.”

“If you come near us with a camera, Elf, you will so regret it.”

“He won’t see me. He’ll just pick up you so I’m fine with that.”

“You’re supposed to back me up here!”

 

* * *

 

 

Phoenix giggled and then noticed the other woman giving her a Look.

“What?”

“You’re a cosmic entity. We don’t, I repeat, don’t giggle.”

“Oh, you’re such a stick in the mud.”

“Perhaps I’m having an identity crisis because you burned away the entire Universe.”

“No need to rub it in. It’s my job.”


	21. Catnip

Kurt had been planning to watch a few movies that night and generally relax. But when he saw Tora curled up of Logan’s lap, fast asleep, he couldn’t resist. Since Christmas, they apparently had become joined at the hip. The only argument that they’d had was something about Logan being overprotective in battle and getting in the way of her fighting. But everyone in the mansion sensed the other undercurrent of dissention between them. Logan was all for them sharing a room –and a bed. Tora was apparently dead set against it. They were being completely civil and courteous about it but bets were being placed on how long it would take Tora to crack. Or, in Jean’s case, how long it would be before Logan proposed out of necessity. Kurt gave an impish grin. Those photos were so being sent to the Avengers. And the Fantastic Four. And all the B-list superheroes. Oh, this was going to be good.

Thirty minutes later, Kurt was cursing. Stupid Tora and her stupid digital scramblers. All he had was photos of Logan. And not even Logan doing anything stupid. But he could still make their lives misery. He rummaged in the box of circus memorabilia for the cat toys.

Logan ran his fingers through the black streak in her hair. There was something about it that meant he loved twisting the silky black hair around his hand. Perhaps it was because it was a representation of her dark streak, the side she kept so well covered but he sometimes saw reflected in her eyes. He hungered for her but she kept him at arms length, which was probably the best way of getting him to stay. And she didn’t even know she was doing it. Suddenly she bolted upright. She was scenting the air. Could he have missed something? He sniffed as well and caught a scent. He was going to kill Kurt. The scent of catnip was winding it’s was into the nostrils of both ferals. Logan remained unaffected while Tora seemed to be going into a state of euphoria. He’d seen that before but only in cats. She was tracking the scent, trying to find it. Then she pounced. It looked as though Kurt had bought three hundred cat toys, slit them open and poured all the catnip into one huge bag. She was plucking at it like a cat does and making soft noises in the back of her throat. She was purring! Purring! A ferocious warrior, an X-Man, purring! He was so going to tease her about that when she returned to sanity. She looked at him and her pupils were huge. OK, this was getting out of control. In the end he had to get some pickles from the kitchen. She hated the smell and the taste. They were too strong for her enhanced senses and they managed to shock her out of her madness. After she’d shaken the worst of the clouding around her mind away she looked up at him.

“I. Am. Going. To. Kill. Kurt.”

“You do know you purr.”

“I do not!”

“Oh yeah?”

He started tickling her until she collapsed then started scratching under her chin and behind her ears. The low purr came out before she could stop it. She looked slightly shocked.

“Well what do you know? I do purr.”

The look of slight surprise on her face caused him to start laughing his head off.

 

* * *

 

 

“I never heard her purring.”

“That only happened when she was alone. With Logan.”

“Oh, spare me the mental image.”

“How much did you make out of that bet?”

“A tidy amount.”

 

* * *

 

 

They were dodging falling debris. How often did this end up happening? Tora had given up counting. She loved this. The adrenalin shooting through her system as she ducked and leapt. She felt alive and she planned to keep it that way. Backing up, she met Wolverine and the two began their long perfected double strike.

“When we get back, Tigress, I have something I want to ask you.”

“Can’t it wait, Wolverine? If you hadn’t noticed…LOOK OUT!”

She pushed him out the way of the heavy metal girder. He crouched down to look at her.

“You okay?”

“ _Aïe_ ”

She naturally switched to the French version of “ouch”. Deeming if she was able to be sarcastic about it, she was fine. Leaving her under the girder wasn’t the best bet but she’d be safer than fighting.

“Wolverine, don’t you dare leave me under this thing. I have a right to fight as well.”

“Sorry, darling. But Colossus is busy.”

“I am so going to neuter you when we get back.”

“Just let me ask you that question, then I swear I’ll stand still and let you attack me. If you still want to.”

She twisted under the girder, feeling her back scars break open. The pain gave her the incentive to tear her way out and go back into the fray. Hank wouldn’t want to help her hide her injuries so she was going to have to sneak into the Medi-Lab. Things had got crowded when the original X-Men had decided to come home. With the Mississippi girl who’d joined things were actually getting quite crowded. Things had almost reached breaking point when Logan had insisted that the LA kid, Jubilee stayed there as well. Another reason to strangle him. That girl either followed Logan around like a puppy or made snide comments about her relationship with him. It had started driving her slightly insane. Of course she liked Miss Lee. It was almost impossible to dislike her. It’s just that she was slightly overpowering.

It’s not that there were too few rooms; it was just the feeling of being crowded. The library wasn’t a safe haven anymore, even if Dr McCoy was the only other one who went there regularly. People would stick their heads in all the time, meaning it was impossible for her to read properly. Even her thinking spot down by the lake wasn’t private anymore. Everyone knew they could find her there. She didn’t know why everyone seemed to like offloading their troubles to her. Bobby told her about doubting his powers, Jean about the fact the Phoenix Force was coming back (whatever that was. Details seemed to be a little hazy), Ororo about how she had to control her emotions all the time, Kitty about the ‘Piotr Problem’ and Angel about Wolverine (Thankfully that conversation didn’t last long. She’d just pointed out it was her boyfriend he was being rude about so shut up). She’d helped in what ways she could, mainly by listening to what they said. And then word had got out she would listen to all your troubles just as long as you weren’t rude about her boyfriend and now everyone came flocking to offload their troubles. They seemed to think she could hold their secrets close, help them with the problems they had. Even the new woman, Rogue, came and talked about the fact she couldn’t touch anyone. And in a single moment of empathy, in the second when she saw someone like her, Tora had reached out and brushed her bare fingers to the other woman’s face. Not enough to allow her memories to pass to her. She wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. But enough to give the green-eyed woman a taste of her abilities and also the emotion that she was being trusted. The ex-Brotherhood member had just looked at her with a shocked look on her face and Tora had just walked away.

She slid back into the present as she twisted under a blow. She’d ‘lent’ her powers to Rogue for the fight and it was quite interesting to see how she fought. Tora grimaced as she felt her reopened scars heal shut. Unfortunately that was another costume soaked in blood. She heard a camera shutter close and she had a feeling a picture of her uniform with the X of blood on the back would be splashed across the papers that had nothing better to print. But the scent of that photographer… Her head snapped round and she saw a brown-haired, brown-eyed man in his early twenties taking photos. She smiled slightly. All she needed was an excuse to get close. And there it was. One of their opponents about to attack him. Tora tensed and leapt, pushing the man out of the way. Then smiled slightly.

“ _Salut mon ami_.”

“I’m sorry?”

“See you later, Spidey.”

“Sorry?”

“No fooling the nose, Wall-crawler. See you around.”

She dived back into the fray. Ten minutes later he swung in. She knew he couldn’t resist a fight. The two were soon having a small chat as she threw her opponent and he webbed his.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Highly advanced sense of smell, remember? I’m amazed you were stupid enough to come.”

“Why?”

“I catch your scent, Wolverine catches your scent then bang, secret identity down the drain.”

“You won’t…”

“I’m not about to reveal your little secret. I don’t even know your name so…”

The man dressed in red and blue lowered his voice.

“Peter.”

“Tora.”

The two heroes exchanged smiles. At least it looked like he smiled.

“So, are the rumours I’ve been hearing from the Avengers true?”

“What rumours?”

“About you and Wolverine?”

“What do these rumours say? I can’t answer unless I know.”

“It depends on who you listen to. Ask Iron Man and you’re sleeping together. Ask Quicksilver and he tried to kiss you and you attacked him. Ask Cap and he just says that he hasn’t even met this guy so isn’t going to spread rumours about him.”

“I really need to meet this Captain America.”

“So then, are the rumours true?”

“None of the things you said are true.”

“Comeon. Please. I really want to know so I can annoy Logan next time we team-up.”

“If you don’t shut up I’ll shout your name out loud.”

The conversation faltered as they chose new opponents and dived in.

“Did you hear that the Avengers are hosting a party for New Year? The X-Men are invited.”

“Sorry, big parties aren’t my thing.”

“But I could introduce you to Cap.”

“Maybe.”

 

* * *

 

 

The being who once went by the name of Jean Grey turned to look at the other person. Her companion’s head was bent over the pool, long silver grey hair almost touching the water.

“You miss the old times.”

The side of the face uncovered by ice showed pain.

“Of course I miss them. Sometimes I think I managed to keep more of my humanity than you.”

“I miss them too. But you can’t let that get to you.”

“I thought for a few sweet years I would never have to lose those I cared for most. Then all my friends aged away. And my children died and even the man I loved passed away in his sleep. I’m supposed to protect, Jean. Why couldn’t I protect them?”

“You tried. That’s what mattered.”

Out of the ice mask a single red tear dropped from the carved eye. For a second another face appeared there. Hair bright, face whole as the force inside her withdrew from the pain only those who lived could feel. Then the mask reappeared, the hair lost its brilliance. The thing inside her settled back into its shell and the sorrow of many lifetimes was swept from her face.

“I never understood why you let your hair fade.”

“Perhaps I needed to remind myself, that for all I seem to be more, I’m still only a mortal.”

 


	22. Shadows of Questions

They were standing in their clearing. It had become theirs over time. Feelings from the first kiss still lingered. The others had soon learnt if they went off there together not to go anywhere near it. But now she was looking at him with her arms crossed.

“This had better be good else we’re going straight to the Medi-lab.”

Logan shifted slightly. This was different to when he had been trying to ask Mariko. But then Mariko had never been slightly unpredictable. Most of the time he could guess what Tora was going to do but then there would be those few times when she’d change tactics and either lash out at something he thought wouldn’t bother her or meekly accept something he thought she would hate. This was one of those times when things could go either way. She’d either be incredibly insulted and attack or she’d forgive him for leaving her under the girder for her own protection.

She was giving him that look that meant she was getting impatient. He better talk quickly.

“Tora. Er… erm. This isn’t looking good is it?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t making this easier for him with her unwavering stare.

“Er…I was wondering that….er…since we’ve been going out for-”

“Six months. Can you please think out what you’re going to say before you actually say it?”

“Well ya ain’t helping, staring at me like that. The only thing I’ve seen that blinks less than you do are fish. And they don’t have eyelids.”

He watched the slight smile play across her lips. He wished he were able to charm her into this. He closed his eyes and complied everything he wanted to say, hoping she wouldn’t put him off with that look.

“Right. I think I have everything I want to say. Please don’t kill me, not until you’ve heard me out. Ya know I’m not very good with words, that I prefer to fight than to work out my troubles. I can’t pretend I’m good at this. But in the time I’ve known you, it’s like everything has changed. No really!”

The skeptical look on her face told him she wasn’t buying this.

“What I’m trying to say is, either of us could be dead tomorrow, or captured by some evil megalomaniac. And I was sort of thinkin’. If I had to die, I’d like to know I had a family. Someone who cared about me. So…”

“So…”

“So I was wondering…er…”

“You’re doing it again.”

“That’s it! I give up on words.”

And he drew out the tiny box he’d bought. He glanced up and saw a slight flicker of confusion through her eyes. Of course! She didn’t get it. He flicked the box open, revealing the brown-gold flash of tiger’s eye. He’s thought about that for hours before choosing the warm golden stone because it was the same colour as her eyes. The silver band that twisted around the stone and held it in place. Her eyes were darkening with more confusion and the tiniest flash of comprehension.

“Do you know what this represents?”

Her mouth opened slightly but no sound came out. She started to shake her head then nodded so gently he almost didn’t see the movement.

“I suppose I’m trying to ask you to spend the rest of your life with me. If you want to that is.”

A single tear was sliding over the ruined side of her face. But the barriers were up and he couldn’t tell if he was about to hear a yes or a low hiss. He didn’t get either. Instead she had moved so fast all he saw was a blur and soft lips met his. Hoping this meant she’d accepted he enjoyed the kiss then broke away and whispered hoarsely “Does that mean yes?”

Her warm eyes were sparkling with tears and he saw the love that was burning inside them.

“Of course it means yes, you idiot.”

Then she grabbed his hand.

“Come on, we have an appointment at the Medi-lab.”

“WHAT!”

“I did say I couldn’t forgive you for leaving me out of a fight. Don’t worry. It should grow back.”

He spluttered then saw the slight look in her eyes he’d come to recognize as ‘pulling-Logan’s-leg-look’. 

“You’re having me on, ain’t ya?”

“Of course.”

And they were kissing again, gently, probing. In the end they had to break contact to breathe.

“My Wolverine. _Mon Logan. Mon Carcajou._ ”

“You can call me Carcajou if ya want to.”

Standing in silence the two just remained close for a while before walking back together, hand in hand.

 

* * *

 

 

“That was **so** sweet.”

“Jean, please try not to patronise.”

“And they didn’t tell anyone for **ages**.”

“They told everyone three days later.”

“Yeah but so much happened in that time.”

 

* * *

 

 

When they got up there they wouldn’t tell anyone. They ate with the others, laughed with the others but were still slightly apart. The small box was burning in Tora’s pocket so she made an excuse and went upstairs to hide it in her room. As she’d moved downstairs all the lights had gone out. They’d congregated in the sitting room and been talking about what to do when the low voice had spoken.

“James…”

They looked round.

“James. It’s me.”

Logan had been the only one who dared speak.

“There ain’t no James here.”

A sad moan had followed that statement.

“What did they do to you James?”

Even in the dark, Logan felt everyone’s eyes on him.

“My James. My student. The boy I call my son.”

“You know me?”

“When your love had chosen another, when you were still a boy you went running into the forest. I found you, I taught you. I cared for you and I called you my son. I who had no children was given someone to love and be loved by in return.”

“When was this?”

“You expect me to remember the year? When you have lived as long as I have James, you don’t put stock on the year number. I remember it was before the War.”

“The War?”

“The War. The Great War. The war that set Europe aflame.”

“Wait a second, you are talking about World War One.”

“That is one name for it. But at the time it was the Great War, the War to End All Wars.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Not for me. I, who have seen empires rise and fall, seen kingdoms burn and dynasties die.”

“Who are you?”

“I go by many names. The Fallen Angel, the Darkwing, the Shadow, the Good Demon. But the name I was given when I was a baby was Etana.”

“What are you?”

“I am one of you. Mutant. But I was born of the two races. Neyaphem and Cheyarafim. They entered your mythology as angels and demons. The Cheyarafim are dead, destroyed by Azazel himself. Lord of the Neyaphem. He goes by many names. Semihazah, Duma, Keriel, Mastema, Beliar, Gadreel, Beelzebub, Satan. But he is like us. He is my grandfather and he hates me.”

“Why?”

“Because his daughter betrayed him. Fell in love with a Cheyarafim and I was born. His blood, mingled with that of his worst enemies. He’s been trying to kill me ever since. And it doesn’t help that I banished him and his precious clan to the Brimstone dimension. Centuries back.”

“Are you telling me, you’ve been alive for centuries?”

“I was given to my uncle in Hebron, around 1010BCE.”

“You’re lying.”

“But my dear James, why would I lie?”

“No one lives that long.”

“I am not the eldest of our kind. Before me there was Selene. And the Cloaked One. The one who manipulates you and I cannot touch him.”

“You know the person who did all this to me?”

“By reputation only. Now, James, are you ready to believe me?”

Suddenly the lights flickered back up and they all gasped. Gazing at them from the ceiling was a woman with silver hair and silver eyes without pupils or scleras. Her body was covered in a soft black fur like Kurt’s but around her ankles, wrists and eyes delicate black feathers were picked out. She seemed oddly hunch-backed and a tail, not quite as long as Kurt’s but edged with feathers swung under her. Her hands and feet were entirely human though. She looked around and gasped slightly.

“Cheyarafim and Neyaphem together…”

“What?”

She pointed at Warren.

“Cheyarafim.”

Then at Kurt.

“Neyaphem.”

“W…What?”

She dropped from the ceiling and as she straightened up the hunchback twisted and unfolded into a pair of gleaming black wings. She was looking hard at Kurt.

“Uncle.”

“ _Vas?_ ”

“Azazel is the only Neyaphem able to leave his dimension through his teleporting skills. All Neyaphem born since I trapped them are his children. By default, you are my uncle.”

“Why are you here?”

“Because when James left he told me not to contact for him until he found peace. And being a fool, I agreed.”

“Excuse me, but why so you keep calling him James?”

“Because that was the name I knew him by. The name he went by at seventeen. Of course I suppose he has a different name now.”

“Yeah.”

“Is it Logan by any chance?”

“How…?”

“You went by James Logan from aged twelve when you were forced to flee your home. But I know the name you were born under. But you yourself told me that boy was dead. I leave it to rest. Logan.”

“You don’t look like you’re millennia old.”

The woman smiled, showing brilliant white teeth which had no suggestion of Kurt’s fangs. She did look like a mixture of Kurt and Warren.

“Excuse me, can we get back to the place where you called me Uncle?”

“Sorry, but it’s true.”

“How old am I?”

She sighed.

“I don’t know exactly. I had been taking a decade or so off when you found me. So I wasn’t sure of the exact year. But I’d say you’re about…”

“About?”

“One hundred and thirty.”

For a few moments no one could talk.

“I can allow you to examine my memories if you wish.”

“How?”

“I know you wouldn’t be stupid enough to start a mutant group without a decent telepath. I’m lowering my shields now.”

“Jean, I’d appreciate it if you weren’t the one to do this.”

“Why, Logan?”

“Just trust me on this.”

Charles looked at the dark-furred woman. She looked like she was in her late thirties. But there was a look of age about the way she held herself. She glanced round.

“Would you mind me getting my equipment? It’s pretty special to me but I thought it prudent not to bring them in with me. They are very…specialised.”

“Erm, what sort of specialised?”

“I assume you know what Logan specialises in. Well, I taught him the basics. Just martial arts and languages. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you get bored and learn all sorts. The martial arts were from my trips to China and Japan in the 14th century. I think my Russian may be obsolete now.”

“Oh.”

“Miss…er…”

“Etana. They hadn’t quite got around to surnames when I was born.”

She gave a flash of white teeth then disappeared in a light absorbing black cloud.

“I may be prepared to admit I am related to her.”

Suddenly a burst of blinding white light appeared where Etana had been standing before. She was now holding a bag from which various swords, knifes and throwing equipment protruded. She noticed their looks.

“I deal in protection for those without a voice. No fee. But some of the people I go up against don’t take no for an answer. I do aim to scare rather than kill. A maimed enemy can be more use that a dead one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I protected a small Jewish community in Poland in the Second World War. My only regret was I couldn’t save more of my people. But after I fought off some of the invaders, many of the native Poles switched sides to join me.”

“Your people?”

“I was raised in a Hebrew family. Things have changed since then but I remain faithful to my foster parents. And their faith. I never really was able to put down roots. Longest I ever stayed somewhere was around the first century BCE. I sort of gave up on life then. Thought I’d done everything. Made some stupid mistakes, made deals with the wrong people. Managed to break free but they didn’t like that. I kept a low profile for a couple of decades. Hid in Africa, took what I needed to survive and in return I told stories. Of angels and demons, of far off lands. Of people with skins of blue and of white bears. They loved me. Their storyteller, their protector. Their fallen angel.”

She smiled sadly.

“Best fifty years of my life.”

She said it in the tone that most people would say ‘six weeks’. That showed them how different her outlook was to theirs. They planned a few weeks in advance. She planned years or even decades in advance. She was old. So old they had trouble comprehending how ancient she was.

“May I?”

She turned to look at Xavier and nodded.

“Would you like a quick tour through the centuries or just the memories concerning Logan?”

“You can control what I see?”

“I used to work a lot with telepaths. Sometimes I needed their…er…special abilities. They taught me how to create shields and one showed me how to give psychic tours.”

“I have never heard of how to do that.”

She laughed.

“You wouldn’t. It died with my friend. We were partners for thirty years. I still have his imprint somewhere in here.”

The woman who had seen centuries fly past tapped the side of her head.

“You have an imprint of your companions in your own mind?”

“I couldn’t let him die.”

The Professor nodded. And then she reached out a hand and touched his head. Images flashed by so fast he almost couldn’t see them. Years, centuries worth of knowledge and experience. He saw how her friends aged while she remained young. He saw the different aliases she used over the years to protect those without voices. He saw how she gained experience, becoming a fighter who rivalled Logan. Then the images slowed and he saw a young man of about 17 screaming in the forest. He felt the kinship Etana had felt for him and flicked her wings to land beside him. The boy hadn’t seemed afraid.

_“Are you here to kill me?”_

_“And why would I do that, little one?”_

_“I want to die. Rose chose Smitty. He’s like my father but I love her. Will you kill me?”_

_“I don’t kill for no reason,little one. I protect. But I’ll teach you if you want me to.”_

_The boy turned to look at her and Charles saw the ice-blue eyes he knew so well only without the look of intense suffering._

_“Why?”_

_“Because we are the same. Because you would be the best student I could ever take.”_

_“You’re a teacher?”_

_“Among other things.”_

_“I had a teacher. Miss Douglas. She was amazing. She made me laugh. At times I thought she was more of a mother than my own mother.”_

_“Then come little one and I will show you. Show you how to protect those you care about.”_

She sped up the memories so a few days passed in what felt like seconds. Then the boy came running to her crying.

_“Little one, what is wrong?”_

_“I killed her. I killed her. She got between me and Dog. I didn’t mean to kill her, it was an accident.”_

_Etana didn’t say anything but simply held the boy close to her as he cried._

_“Come. You can stay with me until you are ready.”_

Again the memories sped up as The Fallen Angel trained the boy she now knew as James. Whatever his original name had been she kept it hidden from Charles. And she saw him less as a student but more as a son. Then the day when he had almost killed her in training.

_“I can’t teach you any more, James. I’ve given you centuries worth of experience but you’ve absorbed it in under a year. Perhaps I should have taught you how to control yourself more.”_

_“I need to go.”_

_“James, why?”_

_“Because I need to find someone like you. Someone who can look me in the eyes. I need to find some sort of peace. To get away from what happened that night. And maybe to find a way of forgiving myself for Rose.”_

_“James, I understand.”_

_“You do?”_

_“Of course, Little One. But I will find you. And I will watch you.”_

_“Please don’t interfere. I have to do this on my own.”_

Charles felt her misgivings. Then…

_“I swear I shall not intervene or make contact until you have found what you are searching for.”_

Time sped up again. He watched as Etana kept her vow despite it breaking her heart. He could only watch with her as the women Logan loved were killed and as his humanity was stripped away. Then the World Wars where others required her help more. He watched as Logan’s pain continued and finally the Weapon X Project. Etana couldn’t help him. She watched as he roamed the Canadian wilderness and became an employee of Department H. Then she watched as he joined the X-Men, helping where she could. So that was who let the X-Men out in that scuffle with the new Brotherhood. Then she watched as he found the peace he craved and also the woman who looked him in the eyes. So she had come. Charles withdrew from her mind with the knowledge this woman was no fraud. Nobody could have constructed the things she had seen from books. Her eyes that looked like Kurt’s stared into his.

“See. He was my son, despite there being no blood to tie us.”

He looked around at the X-Men.

“Aren’t you going to scan her?”

Amazing. She’d given him a guided tour of three millennia in so short a time the others hadn’t even noticed he was gone.

“She is no fraud. And also Logan does appear to be about one hundred and thirty years old.”

Wolverine just walked to the wall and started hitting his head against it.

 

* * *

 

 

At this point Phoenix forgot the no-giggling rule and burst into fits that subsided into hiccups.

“It was funny the first time around. It’s even better seen like this.”

“It’s not funny. He just found out what he thought were the seven-eighths of his life that had been wiped were actually about twenty-five twenty-sixths of his life.”

“Yes but Logan thumping his head on the wall. He made a hole in it!”

“Respect the adamantium.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we introduce possibly my favourite original character. As you'll find out, Etana tends to hijack storylines.


	23. Old Friends, New Friends

The Avengers party seemed to be going very well. At least until Etana arrived. She seemed quite friendly with the X-Men but insisted on living outside. But when she turned up later than the X-Men most people just stopped and stared. She was dressed comfortably in a red vest top and trousers. It wasn’t the clothes that made people stare. After all, it was a party of heroes. It was the weapons she was carrying. A quiver of arrows fitted on her belt, along with what looked like a folding bow. Katanas crossed down her back, fitting in between her wings. Various other weapons were strapped onto her belt but they all had things in common. Everything had been invented before guns. There were swords, knifes, throwing stars and sais but no guns. She turned around.

“I am sorry I’m late. There was a drugs cartel I’ve been meaning to deal with for weeks. The entire New York cell is now outside the police HQ with a sudden urge to confess.”

“Shadow? Shadow, is that you?”

She turned and her face split into a smile.

“Captain! I was pleased to hear about your recovery from the ice. It’s been…62 years?”

“More like nine years for me.”

Iron Man, visor flipped up looked between his colleague and the strange woman.

“You two know each other.”

“I worked with The Shadow in the War. Best hand-to-hand fighter I ever met. We had each other’s backs for a while in Poland. She was protecting a town there.”

“It’s Etana to you, Captain. I’ve been hiding behind Shadow, Fallen Angel and so on for much too long.”

“Excuse me, but you expect me to believe this woman fought in World War Two? She’d too young.”

“Are you saying that three millennia is too young to have fought?”

“Impossible! Are you some sort of Asgardian?”

“No. My grandfather fought for the title Satan but really he was just a mutant. Like I am. But some of us are almost impossible to kill. Selene for one. The Cloaked One for another. Not that I can’t be injured. It’s just very hard to do.”

“I thought you preferred to work alone?”

“I’m staying with the X-Men for a few days. And I came here to renew old acquaintances.”

“I’m honoured. So any of our others friends survived.”

“Actually, one is here tonight.”

“Really? Who?”

“Guess. LOGAN!”

Wolverine came over, Tora close behind.

“Logan, will you take your mask off for a second?”

“Why?”

“An old friend.”

Logan grimaced then obliged.

“Jim… Lucky Jim Howlett… I don’t believe it…”

“Great, someone else who knows me.”

“We were on the D-Day landings together. Remember?”

“Nah. Memory wipes.”

But a flashback suddenly drove through him. Running beside this tall man with his shield and a boy next to him dressed similarly. The man turned to look at him and grimaced, speaking but the words were muffled. But what was clear was they were friends. He staggered slightly and felt hands catch him.

“Logan?”

“Memory got through.”

“You called yourself Logan when we first met. In Madripoor. 1941. Rescuing Natasha.”

“Sorry, haven’t a clue. Some high and mighty government types wiped my memory. Along with turning me into a living weapon.”

“What happened to the girl you were with?”

Etana answered.

“Murdered.”

Logan turned and spoke with ice in his voice.

“You were watching the entire time and never helped.”

“You told me not to.”

Tora’s hand tightened on his arm. Most people wouldn’t notice the fact she was putting a lot of pressure on his arm. But in a room of people who’s lives are often on the line unless they can read a single movement it was as plain as day.

“Logan, don’t.”

He relaxed as her grip lessened. She switched to Japanese, to give them some privacy.

“<You heard what Charles said. You told her not to interfere in your life. >”

“<But she stood by while whoever this woman was died. >”

“<At the time she had other things to worry about. The town she was protecting for one. >”

He scowled slightly then noticed a look of polite indifference on Etana’s face. She knew. She spoke Japanese, she’d told him about it when he’d asked her more about his past.

She gave a slight nod then turned to go. But not before turning and speaking in Japanese.

“<When were you going to tell me about your happy news? >”

A single silver eye disappeared as she winked.

“<You know? >”

“<You were like a son to me. I can read you like a book. >”

She smiled slightly then disappeared to do whatever was next on her list of things to do. She knew more about him than anyone and he couldn’t help but feel glad that out of all the people in the world, it was her who knew about his past.

“So ‘Logan’, what have you been doing over the last six decades?”

“Haven’t a clue. Everything is sort of blank until what I suppose was the mid-eighties when I started running wild in the Canadian wilderness. Since then I’ve been a spy, an assassin and various other things.”

“Any other woman since that apparent failure from the War?”

“Lots. But only a few who were worth anything.”

“Logan, I think ‘Ro wants to talk to me.”

“Who’s the girl? Whoever she is, she guessed you wanted to talk to me alone.”

“Tora. Tigress to most people. My successor at Weapon X. Not someone you want to cross.”

“A successor? What does that mean?”

“It means they kidnapped a toddler and tortured her until she did what they wanted. And when she refused to kill, they sold her to a homicidal, raving manic.”

“What happened?”

“She learnt how to control the beast inside her. Something I can’t do. So you knew me?”

“Lucky Jim Howlett. So called because you’d survive absolutely everything they did to you. You were taken prisoner just before I had my ‘accident’. Haven’t a clue what happened to you. The Shadow seemed to know, I’d ask her. The only time I ever saw her scared was when she thought you’d seen her. Wouldn’t tell me why.”

“She made a promise years before she wouldn’t interfere in my life. Stupid thing to make her promise. Most of the bad things in my life wouldn’t have happened if she’d been there.”

“You know her?”

“She calls me her son. Adoptive only.”

“How old are you? If she thinks you’re her son then…”

“I’d rather people don’t ask about my age.”

“So you’re helping this Tora deal with her past?”

“She does that by herself. If anything she helps me deal with mine.”

“She seems pretty unique.”

“That’s the word I’ve been trying to find to describe her.”

She returned and pulled her mask off.

“This place is so crowded. Is there anywhere I can breathe?”

“There’s the balcony. Along the corridor, right and out the long windows.”

“ _Merci._ ”

“Don’t you want me to repeat the instructions?”

She tapped the side of her head.

“Photographic memory.”

She walked off then turned round and smiled at Logan.

“If Etana guessed, shouldn’t we start telling people?”

He shrugged and she mouthed a final “Love you” before leaving the room, but not in the same dramatic way Etana had.

“What’s she talking about?”

“For some crazy reason I feel like telling you. I suppose I must get some of the memories of trusting ya, so here goes. We’re engaged. It’s stupid, we’ve only known each other for a year but when either of us could be dead tomorrow then it doesn’t seem to matter.”

“We all bond quicker with those in our walk of life. It’s the constant fear that does it.”

His short companion from the war gave that slightly scary smile of his.

“If it’s any consolation, you don’t seem to have changed much. By the way, what happened to her face?”

“She refused to kill a villain in the course of her job and got her face sliced up for her trouble. She’s too kind fer her own good. And it ain’t the worst of her scars.”

“What do you mean?”

“We found her back had been ripped open when she was a kid. And for a while she flinched when we moved too fast.”

“What happened to her?”

“Ya don’t wanna know.”

 

* * *

 

 

Phoenix sighed.

“He told Cap before he told any of us. His friends!”

“Cap was his friend.”

“Yes but he didn’t remember that.”

“Why am I always the voice of reason?”

“Because you’re balanced and sensible and as grounded as a cosmic entity can be?”

 

* * *

 

 

She stood on the balcony overlooking the city. She’d needed to get out of the crush, out of the multitude of thronging heroes. Suddenly Etana was standing beside her.

“Tora.”

“Etana.”

“You’re right for him.”

“ _Pardon?_ ”

“Out of all the women he’s been with, you’re the only one who I feel has the slightest chance of surviving the Cloaked One’s manipulations.”

“Who is this Cloaked One?”

“I don’t dare fight him. He has been scheming for almost all of humanity’s life. He was old when I was born. Most of what I hear is rumours. He leads the Lupine, a sub-sect of mutants. They are as powerful as the Neyaphem were in the height of their powers.”

“I thought you banished the Neyaphem.”

“I did. But I had an advantage. The Cloaked One relies on shadows to hide his existence. He uses his people as a shield. And he’s trying to groom Logan to take over from him. For even us, the so called Immortal mutants age, wither and die. Selene steals life-force so she doesn’t count. But the Cloaked One is aging. Dark hair has become grey. He needs a successor. And Logan is everything he prizes.”

“Why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t Logan know?”

“Because another is being groomed for the role. One who Logan would kill me if he knew. One day the two will have to fight to be the new Pack leader. One will have to kill the other. Logan will either kill or be killed by his own son.”

“He has a son?”

“The man is sixty years old. And he’s been trained to hate Logan.”

Tora looked the woman who looked only slightly older than her in the eye.

“Who are you? Really I mean?”

“I am the one who studied under the Dragon. The one with the power of a god but was not a god. She taught me everything. And she told me that when I met a boy who had a wolf inside him I was to train him. She told me about the future. She taught me a lot.”

“Who was she?”

“She made me swear not to tell. One day you may meet her. Then you’ll understand.”

She reached around her neck and unhooked a silver chain. Hanging from it was a tiny stone, all the colours of water.

“She told me to give this to my daughter. I’m not exactly the sort to have children. Logan is like my son. When I was raised, if a woman married a man, the man’s mother called her daughter. So you’re the closest thing I’ll ever have to a daughter. Here. The chain may need replaced over time.”

She pressed the small necklace into Tora’s hand and disappeared before she could protest. Tora held the blue stone up to her eyes. It was carved into a winged Chinese dragon and when she flipped it over, a tiny inscription in Hebrew made her look at it harder.

“I am She Who Rides the Waves of Time.”

That was odd. She held the tiny stone in her hand and felt the heat being drawn from it. But the stone didn’t warm. She suddenly felt a kinship with the Fallen Angel she hadn’t felt with anyone else. Etana had suffered in a way few could. She had friends and comrades and they died while she lived on and she made new friends and they died and she was stuck in an eternal cycle of losing those she was close to. That was the sorrow in her eyes. The sorrow of watching everything she built being destroyed. A familiar scent caught in Tora’s nose.

“Ororo.”

“Logan just told me.”

She didn’t need to know what Logan had told her. She turned and felt warm arms wrap around her.

“You deserve some good luck Tora.”

“I don’t believe in luck. It’s all probability. That and pure skill.”

She felt ‘Ro’s arms tighten even harder around her. Caught the exotic plant scent that she used all the time.

“You know what I mean.”

The short woman smiled at the tall woman who she considered a friend.

“You realize you’re suffocating me?”

“Sorry. What’s that?”

Storm was looking at the tiny necklace in Tora’s hand.

“Etana gave it to me.”

Ororo scooped up the silver chain and swept back Tora’s hair, deftly fitting the chain next to the cross Kurt had given her that Christmas.

“Thanks.”

Suddenly something dark-haired and moving incredibly fast knocked into Tora.

“Logan-just-told-me.-This-is-great-I-don’t-believe-it!”

“Hello Jubilee.”

“And Logan’s now sitting at the bar with **Captain America** and they’re laughing. And drinking quite a lot. Or rather Logan is. Cap’s just sitting with one drink.”

“Is he?”

“And Iron Man just took one look at Wolvie and walked out.”

“Oh-”

“And the Invisible Woman’s looking for you along with She-Hulk, Jean, Ms Marvel, Wasp and pretty much every female superhero here.”

Tora went very pale.

“What happened?”

“Well Logan told Cap, who told Iron Man who shouted it out through his speakers.”

“‘Ro will you please just kill me?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Please can I laugh?”

“Fine. Just don’t blame me if you slip on the ice.”

“She was so scared when we all descended on her and started planning everything for her. I heard she gave Etana half her book collection for ‘rescuing’ her.”

“Tried to. Etana had a pretty impressive collection in her various safe houses.”

 


	24. Broken Hope

Logan could smell her. He crept up downwind. He knew she wanted some time alone but he worried about her. She was sitting cross-legged on the earth; hands cupped and reaching out, head tilted back slightly. She was speaking with great respect, even more respectful than with Charles.

“Am I doing the right thing? Please help me make the right decisions. I’m lost and confused and afraid. Jean seems to have taken over. Ororo’s trying to help and Jubilee seems to think she has the right to plan decorations. And I’m worried as to how my…family will react. Am I rushing this? Am I being foolish? Father, help me make the right decisions.”

She lowered her head and seemed to listen. Knowing he’d seen something she would hate him to see, he crept away, realizing she was deeper than he had thought. A lot deeper. She sounded as devout as Kurt. She rarely opened up like that to him. And she’d been pleading, begging, asking for help. She never asked for help.

 

* * *

 

The two women didn’t say anything. It was sometimes better not to say anything. Peace was hard to come by. They were both remembering times long since dead. A world consumed by fire and water. Two men so unalike. Oddly the personality was the opposite of their respective element.

 

* * *

 

He wished he could understand the words being screamed in the room next door. Both Tora and her mother were yelling at each other. The words were dropping thick and fast and he was beginning to regret coming. He had heard his name twenty-four times in total. Tora’s mother hadn’t taken well to the knowledge her daughter had got engaged without asking for advice. He heard “Xavier” then “ _divorce_ ”. He heard Tora snarl, never a good sign because she rarely lost control but when she did, she was deadly.

_Logan?_

He shook his head. There weren’t any telepaths here.

_Please Logan. It’s me. Eloise._

Oh, please let him be imagining it.

_Logan, I’m scared. I can hear Maman’s thoughts._

He was going to have to start projecting.

_How long have you been doing this?_

_It’s only just started. Maman’s so angry. I can hear Papa and you but not Marie._

_Tora has telepathic shields. Not even the best telepaths can get past them._

_Oh. Can I come with you? I can’t block anything. Everyone is hurting._

_I don’t think your parents would like that._

_Please…_

He was stopped by Tora marching out of the door. She turned and fired a parting shot.

“ _Ils sont plus de ma famille que vous!_ ”

She reached out for his hand and pulled him up. She was marching, murmuring under her breath. He didn’t want to know what she was saying. She was in a quiet rage he had grown to know as her ‘only just keeping a grip on self’ state. When she was like that it was normally better to be quite far away. Like on a different continent. She was walking quickly, like she was afraid she’d turn back and attack her parents if she slowed. She deliberately slammed the front door on exit and broke into a run, towards the far off Blackbird. When out of site of the house she chikted out her claws and slammed them into a tree, keeping on punching until she mangled her fingers to a pulp. She then ran even faster, until she got to the Blackbird and was initiating the start-up procedures when he finally caught up. Tears were slicking down her face and she was shaking.

“What darlin’”

“She…she said it would never work out. That Charles should stop it. That it’ll end in divorce and unhappiness. That I should be marrying someone closer to my own age. That I’m not their daughter.”

He held her close as she began to shudder.

“And I said terrible things. I said it didn’t matter what she thought because she wasn’t there when I was screaming for her. That you’re the only person who can understand. I told her that the others were happy for me. And…and I said that they were my family. I can’t go back. I can’t.”

She cried quietly, sorrowfully for a long time as she let the bitterness out. Then she sat up and returned to her usual efficiency. She flicked the last few switches and set the Blackbird for take off. He could tell she didn’t want to talk for a while. She just sat there, hands clenched tightly so her knuckles went white. He sensed she wasn’t mad at him but she might snap if he tried to talk to her. He waited until they were over the Atlantic and she had relaxed a bit before he dared speak to her.

“You want food?”

“ _D’accord._ ”

He unstrapped the safety harness and walked over to the storage locker when a scent caused him to stop.

“Oh, please no! This can’t be happening.”

He carefully opened the locker to find Eloise napping in it.

“What Logan?”

“Your sister, that’s what!”

She turned in the seat.

“ELOISE!”

The girl shook her head to wake herself up.

“ _Quoi?_ Oh, hi Logan, Marie. I decided to hitch a lift.”

“Right, we are turning straight back round.”

“Please Marie. I’ll even call you Tora. Just I can’t shut them out.”

“Shut whom out?”

“Everyone. All their thoughts and feelings.”

Tora just looked like she wanted to thump her head off something.

“By the way, I’m totally cool with you and Logan.”

“Eloise, there’s a mobile in the third locker along. Ring your parents.”

“They’re your parents as well.”

“Not anymore.”

“ _Mais…_ ”

“Just do it, OK.”

“Good idea to do so kid. Tora ain’t exactly in a good mood today.”

 

* * *

 

“Remember what happened when she returned home?”

“It’s hard to forget. She was very protective of Eloise.”

“Phoenix, do you ever regret things that we sacrificed to save the world?”

“Everyday, every single day.”

 

* * *

 

As they walked towards the door to the kitchen, they heard something being said in French. Eloise giggled and Tora snarled before marching in.

“WHO SAID THAT? There’s an impressionable young girl here whose first language is French.”

A man with auburn hair and sunglasses glanced round. He was leaning on the fridge, giving the impression of complete boredom.

“Gambit say dat. Problem _chère_?”

“To right there is a problem. I don’t ever want to hear **anyone** say that when my sister is in earshot. And who are you anyway?”

“Remy Le Beau, _cherie._ ”

Logan could tell she wasn’t impressed.

“The Remy Le Beau with a thirty page Interpol file?”

“How you find dat file?”

“I take it from your indignant expression that you are The Remy Le Beau, Prince of the Thieves Guild.”

“Dat be Gambit.”

“Two things. One, stop referring to yourself in third person. Two, try pronouncing TH.”

“Remy be _très_ upset.”

“Take it from a native French speaker, your accent is atrocious.”

Logan couldn’t help but laugh. She was running rings around him and was now mocking his accent.

“Who’s da shortie?”

“SHORTIE?”

He was going to gut the newcomer when Tora beat him to it. She struck out, knocking his sunglasses off to reveal red on black eyes.

“I think I’m going to enjoy being an X-Man.”

“Eloise, you are **not** joining the X-Men. You are here to learn to control your powers.”

“Not fair.”

“Logan, take Eloise to Charles.”

“How come…”

“Because I don’t trust you to not kill Mr Le Beau here.”

“Da name’s Gambit.”

“I read your file. Let’s see. Street kid, adopted by Jean Le Beau of the Thieves Guild. Speaks English and Cajun French. Early twenties, notorious ladies man, _correctement_?”

“How da…”

“Expert thief, exiled from New Orleans for killing your brother-in-law the day you got married.”

“No more, please no more!”

“Goes by codename of Gambit. Risk taker, mutant with ability to do something with cards, that bit of the file had been wiped, suspect for over three thousand major thefts…”

“Please _chérie_ _,_ stop dat!”

“Don’t call me _chérie_. Major gambler, worked for Nathaniel Essex-”

She was cut off by him running out of the room screaming about freaky women who knew too much. She gave a slight smile.

“Hopefully that will teach him not to swear when kids are around.”

Etana appeared in a flash. She was allowed to teleport in the house, as all she was responsible for were flash burns to the eyes. As she walked over to the fridge she smiled at Tora.

“Why was that rather nice young man screaming?”

Eloise was looking at the black-furred and winged mutant with her mouth open.

“Wow…”

“Hello. Are you Eloise?”

“ _Er…oui._ ”

“Pleasure to meet you. I haven’t been to France in centuries.”

“Er…”

“When she says centuries, she means it.”

“I don’t think I’ve been there since I rescued Jeanne. That was a close one. I did tell her not to get captured.”

“You’re the Dark Angel…”

“I think I was going by that name at the time…”

“Huh?”

“A student of mine got into some trouble so I rescued her at the last minute. According to the history books she died but the English didn’t exactly want people to know a black angel had flown down, beaten up a crack regiment and rescued the Maid of Orleans from the stake. They rounded everyone up and told them ‘this didn’t happen right’.”

“Maid of Orleans… I’ve heard that name…”

“Jeanne d’Arc or Joan of Arc.”

“You mean…”

“Look, it doesn’t matter. Eloise, I am Etana. I am three thousand years old but don’t let that bother you. I find it easier to tell people straight out.”

Eloise just gaped at the matter of fact way Etana mentioned her age.

“Etana, you just terrified the poor child.”

“She’d have found out anyway. And if you enrol her in a normal school, it would make it easier for her school history projects. I have the unfortunate habit of being where the action is most of the time.”

She shrugged, found the pitta bread and disappeared.

“I can see why you turned out like you did Logan.”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Etana calls Logan her son.”

“Cool. So she’s my future brother-in-law’s _maman_?”

“No! She sort of adopted me.”

“So she is your _maman_.”

“NO! Tora will you explain…Tora…”

For Tora had managed to disappear yet again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Remy never got over that first day did he?”

“He started shaking every time she entered the room for weeks afterwards.”

“And charging cards when she said hello.”

“And then she beat him at poker.”

“Logan taught her well. I never saw a poker face like that.”

“Lucky she refused to gamble for money.”

“He was doing all her laundry except her underwear for three weeks though.”

“But if she hadn’t… Can you imagine Logan’s reaction if he tried to flirt with her…?”

And despite her repeated comments on cosmic entities not giggling, she joined in with Phoenix.

 


	25. That Uncommon Torture

She was standing in abject terror looking down the stairs. Almost every female superhero was waiting to take her on The Shopping Trip.

“Jean, I thought you said this was going to be a small trip.”

“Everyone wanted to help.”

She felt like burying her face in her hands. She wasn’t even certain she wanted a wedding dress. And she was regretting telling Jean she could plan most of the stuff for her. Ororo would have been a better choice. Tora hadn’t a clue about half the stuff that was being planned but Sue Richards had given her a talk about getting married when in a full-time heroing post. Apparently almost every wedding was gate-crashed. Then there had been the honeymoon talk, the kids talk and she was going on to start another talk when Etana rescued her. She felt like she owed Etana her life. At any rate, she’d been the single dash of normalcy in her life. She was taken with Etana’s suggestion they just eloped and got married in a registry office but Jean had locked all the papers she would need somewhere and she wasn’t going to get married on forged papers. It was all about principles.

She had disappeared when The Shopping Trip had been suggested and Tora was beginning to wish she hadn’t. She might need teleporting out. But Etana had been pure gold. She’d even offered her Japanese house to them for the honeymoon. Apparently she had safehouses in every major city and proper homes in the Scottish Highlands (for saving some British monarch’s life), Japan’s mountains (bought in the 14th century), a Venice townhouse (built on the site of her old home), New York (just a apartment for American operations) and some sort of Eyrie in the Canadian Rockies where she had met Logan. Apparently some people insisted on paying her for helping them and when the interest over the years reached a million she realized she was going to have to do something. She invested in a few companies and donated the rest. She had offered Xavier the houses for the X-Men but he’d refused. She was becoming a fixture. Sometimes it was handy not to have to ask Warren for money. She mainly lived simply, preferring the food she had grown up with and living in pretty much the same way. Therefore money sat in bank accounts for decades, accumulating interest while she forgot about it. So with a cause to give her money to she had finally got round to doing accounts. It was impressive to say the least. Along with the ‘antiques’ that she had bought new, she was actually richer than Angel. She didn’t realize that the earrings she’d been given some time in India and she’d kept clean out of some sense of duty were now unique and worth more than the Blackbird. She’d quite happily sent them anonymously to a museum and laughed over all the articles. Apparently she hated them. Anyway, she'd never had her ears pierced.

Tora was seriously wondering why she agreed to do this. A black haired woman who looked quite like a lawyer introduced herself as “Jen”, a woman dressed in red as “Wanda” and a slight brown-haired woman as ‘Jan’. Then she had her arms grasped firmly by ‘Carol’ and Sue before being dragged outside to the waiting minivan. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to get home until very late.

Three hours later when she’d been forced into the favourite dresses of every hero and was then told that none of them suited her and Jan would design her one she finally managed to get a word in edgeways.

“I was actually just thinking about wearing my uniform.”

Everyone just looked at her in amazement then Kitty, who’d tagged along, started laughing. Jean was trying not to look hurt and ‘Ro just looked amazed she’d lasted as long as she had.

“But you have to wear white…”

“It isn’t a tradition. In France, white is traditionally the colour of mourning. Mary Queen of Scots caused a shock by wearing white at her wedding.”

She’d sunk them. Hopefully they’d just let her go home now so she could curl up with a coffee and a book. No such luck.

“Well then, we’ll go onto the dress for going on the honeymoon.”

“What? I was just going to wear my usual clothes.”

“Tora, I saw all your clothes when I went to do the laundry. I think Logan would appreciate something more…er…”

“Sexy?”

“Thanks, Carol.”

“Why?”

“First, what’s with the jeans and shirts? It looks like you’re imitating him.”

“They’re practical.”

“Second, I’ve seen your underwear. And it’s as uninspired as your clothes. It’s all white cotton. You don't have any bras that aren't sports bras.”

“And?”

“So we’re going to get some nice outfits for your honeymoon and some underwear to send Logan reeling.”

“Please don’t do this to me, Jean…”

“So, does anybody know any good shops?”

“Please Jean…”

Before she could protest anymore, she was dragged out of the bridal boutique and into the sorts of shops she would normally never set foot in. It took another hour to explain “I don’t do skirts; I can’t kick people in them.” No one believed her when she said she was quite happy dressed as she was. It was when she saw the shop they were planning to go in next that she finally snapped.

“No, please don’t make me go in there.”

The models in the window all showed skimpy lace underwear. In various garish colours.

“Please no…”

“Come on.”

“Help…”

“Right, which ones do you like?”

“Etana, if you can hear me, now would be a good time to rescue me…”

“I think the red…”

“No, the black…”

“Please, someone get me out of here.”

“This is nice…”

“Anyone?”

“I think she should buy this…”

“Please let the Brotherhood attack…”

“Logan would flip for this…”

“Or failing that, can I have a stroke…”

“No, they don’t do them in her size…”

“Or is you can’t do that, can I have a heart attack…”

“I might get some of these. Even if she doesn’t…”

“Please just let me die…”

“I think we need to go smaller…”

“Father, please, please, please stop this torture…”

“Tora, you haven’t said anything?”

“Please, please, please somebody rescue me…”

“Come on Tora, are you even paying attention?”

“Please someone get me out of here…”

“Tora, are you OK? You have a glazed look…”

Suddenly hands slid under her arms and she felt the now familiar feeling of Etana teleporting.

“I owe you one.”

“Sorry I wasn’t there earlier. I was busy. And I couldn’t find you.”

They were in a spacious penthouse apartment with a view of the New York skyline. Etana noticed Tora’s impressed look.

“I like to have space to practice.”

“Thanks Etana. They were getting overexcited.”

“Tell me about it. Coffee?”

“Please.”

“I really wouldn’t mind if you eloped. You could have any of my other houses. Just as long as you tell me.”

“Jean stole my identification. I don’t know where she hid it.”

“Forge the papers.”

“I can’t do that. OK I can do that but it’s not morally right. And I wouldn’t feel like I was married to Logan.”

Etana smiled and disappeared into what Tora supposed was the kitchen. She looked around the room decorated simply in a minimalist style. Photos were scattered across the cabinet. Tora wandered over and smiled. Every single one was of Logan. Logan smiling, Logan laughing, a young Logan hugging Etana. Even a photo of her and Logan. It looked just like a display a proud mother would put up.

“I can’t think what to get you two. The only thing Logan wants are his memories and I don’t think he should have them. I thought about a house but you’ll be staying at the Institute.”

“You don’t have to get us anything…”

“I’m the closest thing you have to the groom’s mother, I have to get you something…”

“Etana!”

“Tora, I need to tell you something.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to live forever. No one does. That’s why everything I own is willed to Logan or any children he may have. Unfortunately, Logan’s son **was** legitimate, even if he has never met him. Unless Logan wills everything to you or any children, the boy will get everything. I’d rather he doesn’t get his hands on some of my stuff. I spent too long gathering information for it to fall into the Cloaked One’s hands. That’s why I’m changing my will so you get everything to share with Logan. Your children will get precedence over Akhiro.”

“I’m not even certain if we want children. We touched the subject, but only briefly. And Etana, I’m not certain you should give all this to me.”

“Tora, I trust you. With my life. Very few people can say the Fallen Angel would willingly sleep in the same house as them. Understand?”

“But…”

“Tora, trust me. I am very stubborn. More stubborn than you. The sort of old woman stubbornness. So don’t try and change my mind.”

“Etana?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Akhiro?”

“Between your times.”

“Oh. No one mentioned him.”

“Daken.”

“Ah… I did terrorize her, didn’t I?”

“You could say that.”


	26. Midnight Chats

Tora felt guilty on skipping her own pre-wedding party but once again, she was being crowded and spoken to far too loudly for her sensitive ears. She was beginning to regret even telling anybody. After her disappearing act on the shopping trip, her clothes had been bought for her and she now had to stay in the room with her washing else it would mysteriously disappear to the same place as the papers. And this morning, on entering her room after a training session she’d found all her usual clothes gone. Jean had magicked then away and put the clothes bought on the trip in her drawers. Fortunately she’d been expecting something like that and Etana had the clothes she’d need in her attic. She’d also taken the case with the clothes Tora actually wanted to wear to her house in Japan already and so Jean had been able to pack other clothes. That case would also be taken but not opened.

But she had put her foot down on going out for the night. So all the X-Men had been ejected from the mansion for Logan’s bachelor party that she knew was touring every bar in New York and she’d been descended on. So when Etana suggested a combat workout to get the frustration out she’d agreed.

The two women now stood at opposite ends of a bridge over a huge chasm. Etana pulled out a katana and threw it across the bridge so Tora could catch it. She weighed it in her hand and smiled. Her opponent drew her favourite sword and smiled at Tora.

“No powers?”

“Fine.”

The two women both moved at exactly the same time, swords clashing in the centre of the bridge. Etana’s grin became a grimace.

“You’re good.”

“Trained from childhood.”

The two women danced around one another, each blow being parried by the other. One whose talent had been honed over the centuries to make her a superb combatant, the other whose talent had been implanted as a child. Both two of the best traditional katana fighters in the world. Almost perfectly matched. But not quite. Tora feinted then brought her sword round in a blow that stopped just where Etana’s neck had been. Only to feel cold steel pressed on her own neck.

“You ‘ported.”

“Of course. Rule Number One.”

“Which is?”

“Always, **always** cheat.”

“Fine.”

Tora dropped her sword and in one smooth movement cut through the ropes of the bridge and dug her claws into the wood. She heard Etana fall then the steady wing-beats. She kept forgetting that just because she could teleport, it didn’t mean those night wings were useless. Apparently it took her centuries to realise she could ‘port so she flew everywhere. Hands caught around her waist and she was flown to the top of the chasm.

“Good. You almost had me.”

“End program.”

The chasm, ruined bridge and echoing walls faded away.

“I have to say, you should definitely fight more often with a sword. Even if your skill was implanted, you still have the natural talent.”

“Thanks, Etana. You’re better than anyone I ever fought.”

The two women walked out of the Danger Room and past the main party.

“I can’t think of it as mine. It’s more Jean’s engagement party.”

“I have to say, I expected Scott to propose before that.”

“I think Logan giving him four Canadian beers in advance shocked him into proposing.”

“My adoptive son is more trouble than he’s worth.”

“That conversation we had at your flat…It got me thinking.”

“About?”

“Our line of work. It’s not the safest. So I’ve left instructions and directions to Weapon X. It’s enough to blow everything out of the water. Proof. Photos. And video footage. Of my…my childhood. If shown, it will destroy everything they worked for. People will be prepared to turn a blind eye to adults. They get called volunteers. But a child?”

“Why not reveal it straight away?”

“Because with my scars I won’t hide, I’m easily recognizable. And I don’t want pity. Only Logan can guess what they did to me. It’s better to let people make their own conclusions. It can’t be any worse than what I had done to me.”

“What did they do to you?”

Tora stopped on the steps out to the grounds. Etana could see the pain contorting her face.

“It hurt…”

“Tora…?”

“It hurt and they wouldn’t stop. They beat me. They cut me. Blasted me with radiation. Gave me drugs. Burned me. Hurt me.”

“What did they do to you?”

Tears were now running down her ruined face.

“One day a guard beat me. He beat me and wouldn’t stop. Then he…he…”

“He?”

“I now know what he was going to do. At the time I didn’t understand…”

“Tora?”

“He was going to hurt me. Then the Professor came. Screamed at him. Told him I shouldn’t be touched like that. They were saving me see. Saving me for Weapon X.”

She was shaking now, trapped in her memories, unable to escape from them.

“Tora, I’m sorry. Don’t say-”

“And he told the guard to go and when he was running away the Professor shot him. I saw a man murdered. I was…I was five years old.”

She was crying properly now, tears streaming out of her eyes. Wordlessly, Etana held her close as the five-year-old girl finally was able to cry out the pain she had suffered. Finally Tora pulled away and ran into the darkness. She needed time alone. Fear and a feeling that she was just playing out the life that had been planned for her were playing on all her doubts about the next day. A scent caused her to stop and look around in shock.

“Mystique?”

“Tigress.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m coming to warn you.”

“Warn me about what, Mystique?”

“Logan. He burns, child, he burns those he cares for.”

“I’m not afraid of fire.”

“You should be, child. You shall be.”

“Shut up, Mystique! Give me one reason not to call the others?”

“Because they’re all passed out or too drunk to notice.”

“Not all of us, Raven!”

Mystique whipped round to see Etana perched on a branch.

“YOU!”

“Yes, Raven.”

“But…But.”

“You never thought that I would survive your double-cross. Why else did your son survive?”

“You…you…”

The hate in both women’s voices was obvious.

“Er…”

“I’ll tell you later, Tora.”

“Tell her? Will you tell her everything? About how you warned me away from your grandfather? Or about how you stole my son?”

“You threw your infant son into the river.”

“Or about how you told my husband resulting in his death?”

“I did not kill him, Raven. You did that yourself.”

“Or how you tried to kill me when I was with Azazel?”

“You know I wouldn’t try and kill you. It was him I swore to kill. I swore it on my uncle’s graves and on the memory of my mother. He killed his own daughter, Raven! Why do you think you meant anything to him?”

Suddenly Mystique lashed out, hitting Etana with a branch.

“You act so superior. You’re just a bitter old woman.”

“Coming from you, Raven, that doesn’t mean much.”

She was moving faster than the blue shapeshifter, striking with wings as well as fists.

“You left me to die. You told the people I was the demon that cursed you. You said I was a witch who pretended to be an angel to cure you of your childlessness. And you were going to kill your son because he destroyed the life you had built for yourself. I’m the best Raven, but even the best can’t fight off a mob when holding a baby.”

Suddenly she backed off.

“Run, little shifter. Run before I lose control.”

Mystique didn’t need any more invitation. It was obvious who would have won that fight. Shapeshifting was no match for someone who could fly then drop you. And Etana had much more experience. She was crouching on the ground, struggling not to go charging after Mystique.

“What was that about?”

“Raven and I have a past together. She had an affair with Azazel and I attempted to stop it. She had a son and in labour revealed herself as a mutant. I rescued her son but she called me a demon that had enchanted her and I was forced to flee with the child. I gave him to a family but the mob caught up with me. Almost beat me to death. I was able to teleport but my wings were broken. Since then it has hurt for me to fly.”

Tora remembered the pained look Etana had had when she’d been forced to fly over a mile. It was a miracle her wings had reset. She managed to get back up.

“And she toyed with Logan for years. That’s the real reason I hate her. But she can’t know about that.”

“Etana, can I talk to you? In private?”

She reached out a hand and Tora grasped it to reappear in Etana’s room. She looked round. No one really came up here. After all, the only entrance was a trapdoor which had now got a cabinet over the top of it. That and the open window. The room was very simple and looked as though it was only used for sleeping in. Meaning Etana spent the time alone doing whatever it was she did. For some reason there had been lots of confessions in New York recently. She denied all knowledge.

“Etana, I’m worried about…”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Do you-?”

“I’m not exactly an expert on marriage.”

“It’s not the marriage. It’s…after…”

She blushed.

“Tora, I’m not the person to ask about that.”

“But you’re three thousand…”

“Yes and I was raised in a time I could have been stoned to death for having a physical relationship.”

“But…”

“And while it was common for us to marry young, no one would marry me. I was the angel-girl. Then I stopped aging and the thought of taking husband after husband depressed me.”

“But now…”

“And I don’t enter relationships for a single night because firstly, I’m not that sort of person, secondly, I’ve lasted over three thousand years so why start now and finally, I am about the most Orthodox Jew you will ever find.”

“When you put it like that…”

Etana smiled slightly.

“In fact, you could probably find out more from the women downstairs.”

“Please don’t send me back. Charles almost started therapy sessions after the shopping trip.”

Etana’s slight smile grew even wider.

“I am really looking forward to having you as a ‘daughter’-in-law.”

“I’m not certain I can think of you as a mother-in-law.”

“Naomi and Ruth got on well enough.”

“I… Why do you keep doing that?”

“What?”

“Making allusions to Biblical times and name-dropping.”

“Ruth was before my time.”

“By how long?”

“Enough.”

“But I’m still worried about tomorrow.”

“Tora. Look at me. Don’t. Worry. At. All.”

“But…”

“Look, I don’t know if this will make you feel better, but you won’t be Logan’s first.”

“I know that. He told me shortly after we first started going out.”

“So trust Logan if you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you, Etana. I…I’m just scared, that’s all.”

“Aren’t we all? Logan wanted to talk to me this morning about exactly this.”

“You mean…?”

“He’s just as scared as you are.”

“But…”

Etana’s silver eyes sparkled.

“Do you think he’d forgive you if you decided to back out now?”

“Good point.”

“So do you want to get a coffee or something?”

“Are you a telepath, Etana? I may need decaff because I’ll be awake most of tonight anyway.”

“Come on, Tora. I have to say, my life improved when coffee became common.”

“You’re as bad as I am.”

“No. I’m addicted to caffeine. You just like the stuff.”

“I go shaky if I don’t have any.”

“It’s all in your head.”

“Everyone says that.”

“You have a healing factor. Logan can give up beer and cigars any time he wants. He isn’t addicted.”

“He attacked Scott when he removed the beer.”

“But that’s because he’s Scott.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t remember her leaving the party.”

“Jean, were you actually paying any attention to her?”

“Er…Not really…”

“See.”


	27. Joining and Breaking

“I can’t go out.”

“Tora…”

“Everyone’s there!”

“Tora…”

“They’ll all stare at me!”

“TORA!”

“I can’t…”

“Tigress, you will go out there right now or my name isn’t Jean Grey.”

“Please, Jean, don’t make me go out there.”

“Tora, Logan will kill you if you don’t go out there right now!”

“But everyone will stare.”

“No they won’t. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I’m scared.”

“Tora, you made a choice.”

“Please…”

Suddenly Jean, Ororo, Kitty and Eloise were all hugging her.

“It will be alright, Tora. Just one step and then take another. One step after another and you’ll be beside Logan before you know it.”

She was pale, from fear and lack of sleep. And it looked like every hero since World War Two was there. But she could see Kurt standing beside Logan and Logan himself looking expectantly down the aisle. And she could see Etana with her silver hair covered in a blood-red scarf. She still went by the old tradition of keeping her head covered for special occasions. She also offered to take Kitty to the synagogue on the Sabbath but Kitty had refused. So Etana went alone, face covered. She refused an image inducer. And the legends had been passed down. The woman who kept her face covered at all times, who never spoke. Who listened then left. She never missed the Sabbath. She never fought or used her powers either. She often remained locked in her attic room.

But now she was sitting quietly with the other X-Men. Or rather Scott, Warren, Hank, Remy, Charles and Piotr. Jean, Ororo, Kitty, Jubilee, Rogue and Eloise were all crowding her, trying to persuade her to leave the house.

“Right, Tora. If you do not walk out there in ten seconds I will paff you.”

“Thanks, Jubilee. Tora really needed that.”

“No, Jean. That’s just what I needed.”

And in a sudden flurry of movement so at contrast with the deathly stillness of moments before she swept down the steps. The others had to rush a bit to keep up. Jean only just remembered to send everyone a message about not staring. Most people ignored it. Tora had vetoed the dress. Instead she wore a white version of her costume with a silver headdress and no facemask. The long silver-grey cloak Etana had given her finished off the outfit. She didn’t so much walk as stalk, with all the fierce animal pride that made her look almost beautiful. And the beauty didn’t matter. Anyway, many knew if Logan heard any of what they were thinking, they would probably lose a few limbs.

Nerves were screaming, but Tora ignored them. She glanced at Jubilee.

“If it looks like I’m getting scared, paff me, right.”

Jubilee gave a huge and evil grin. She was **so** going to enjoy this!

 

* * *

 

 

“How many times did she paff Tora?”

“Five. Twice when she was trying to say the vows.”

 

* * *

 

Etana finally stopped hugging them both and started crying. She’d held up remarkably well during the service. As she pointed out, she was the closest thing to the groom’s mother possible. It was her job to cry. The feathers around her eyes were soaked.

“I wasn’t certain what to get you. Then I remembered these.”

She held up two rings.

“Soul-bands. Linked. If you wear them, you’ll always know where the other is and if they are in danger. I was going to give them to you in place of wedding rings but you’d already bought them. I understand if you don’t want them. But they work. I used to use them for work purposes. I know how to make them change owner. But you have to be wearing them so they work.”

She didn’t get any further as Tora gave her a quick hug.

“Thank you.”

The slender silver bands with tiny gemstones were worn immediately. Etana gave a slightly sad smile before leaving to allow others to get on with crowding the couple. Somehow she managed to be on the edge of the celebrations so no one saw the sadness in her eye.

“Shadow?”

“It’s Etana, Steve.”

“Etana then.”

She turned to see the handsome blond man.

“You know something don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“My teacher, the one I trusted more than anyone told me what would happen. I know what’s going to happen to them. I know how I’m going to die.”

“Etana?”

“I’m not afraid. If anything, I’m happy with how I choose to go. Remember asking me in Poland why I wasn’t afraid of dying?”

“Yes. Your answer threw me. ‘I know when I am going to die. I choose to die.’”

Etana was gazing sadly into space.

“Etana?”

“Steve, no matter what happens; I need you to tell Logan that the darkness won’t last.”

“What?”

“I have to go. I only stayed because Logan and Tora needed me. I thought I would stay but she told me I didn’t and since I got to know Tora I can understand why.”

“What are you talking about?”

Tears were staining her short fur.

“I…I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I tell you, you’ll tell them and the entire time stream will go shooting off at an angle.”

“You said you knew when you were going to die. When?”

“Not for a year.”

“You’re telling me you have a year to live.”

“May 19th, 2007. It puts a damper on their first wedding anniversary.”

“You know you’ve less than a year to live and you’re talking about ruining their wedding anniversary?”

“When you’ve lived as long as I have, death is actually quite promising. All those I never got a chance to say goodbye to.”

“How?”

“Oh, I’m not dying violently. Even if I decide I don’t want to die the way I will, I’ll die anyway.”

“What?”

“When I die, I’ll be ill. Dying of a plague. A virus. A Legacy. It’s easier the way I chose. I know it’s not exactly my religion but ‘ _A man can show no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends_ ’.”

“Stop the classical quotes! Shadow, you’ve just told me quite calmly you’re going to die!”

“Death isn’t the end, Steve. Surely you know that. You have died and come back.”

“I was frozen in ice. There’s a difference.”

“Really?”

“YES!”

“Steve, I’ve accepted my death. You should too. When you find out how I die, you’ll understand.”

“I can’t believe you don’t try and change things!”

“If you continue in this attitude, Steve, I’ll leave.”

“Shadow… You can’t die. We never talked about things…”

“At the time it wouldn’t work out. Now, I won’t hurt you anymore.”

 

* * *

 

 

“That’s why Steve came bursting in and told us to find her. A day late.”

“Yes.”

“I cried for hours.”

“She chose to die. She gave her life for us. All of us. Remember that Jean.”

 

* * *

 

 

Etana smiled slightly. She looked back at Logan and Tora sitting in the back of the Blackbird talking animatedly. Ororo was acting as pilot. Kurt had challenged Spider-Man to a wall-crawling contest and in the confusion that resulted, Etana, Ororo, Logan and Tora had slipped away. Etana because she knew where the house was, Ororo because Etana couldn’t fly. She couldn’t drive either. Apparently she never got round to learning how.

“Logan, we will be there soon. Ororo, you need to adjust the course slightly. You’re aiming too far south.”

“Is that better, Shadow?”

“Yes.”

She stood up and walked to the back, dived into the food locker and removed the painkillers. Her wings were screaming again, the pain getting control. Once upon a time, she’d loved flying. Now it hurt just to move her wings too fast. She never used to teleport, preferring to run or fly. Now it was an easy way of moving. She downed half the recommended dose and put the pack back. She couldn’t forgive Mystique for being responsible for the breaking of her wings. And the attempted infanticide. Sometimes she wondered about having her wings amputated. They weren’t much use as they were. She caught a snatch of conversation as she walked past.

“Yar certain?”

“Yes, I am certain, Logan. I heard the words exactly.”

Wondering what they were talking about, Etana returned to her seat and began correcting the flight path. If she had stayed to listen, she may not have been pleased.

“She says she dies?”

“She told Captain America she dies next year.”

“How can she know?”

“Something about her teacher…”

“Why did you have to tell me this?”

“Because I felt you had a right to know.”

“You were eavesdropping…”

“I couldn’t help it. I was going over to talk to her and I heard her telling Cap she dies on the 19th of May.”

“That exact huh?”

“It’s not funny Logan. Our friend is going to die!”

“We don’t know that for certain. She’s not a precog. She doesn’t know for certain…”

“She knows, Logan. She was taught by a time-traveller. She told me. Her teacher is someone close to us. An incredibly powerful mutant.”

“An X-Man?”

“She didn’t say. But she said we’d know her when we met her. Said she was one of the greatest warriors of all time. Apparently she defeated Magneto in single-combat. With her powers blocked.”

“Defeated…Magneto…”

“Hard to believe. I’ve been practising against the Magneto robot and I’ve only ever beaten him at 40%. And never with the dampeners down.”

“Any other clues?”

“Something about her being Jean’s sister.”

“Jean’s sister is human though.”

“I think she meant it figuratively. The only person I can think of is ‘Ro, but I’m not sure she could beat Magneto without her powers.”

“Did she actually say Jean’s sister?”

“No. She said ‘My teacher was the sister of the Phoenix.’ Does that mean something else?”

“It could. The Phoenix could mean Jean. Or the Phoenix Force.”

“So, could the person be, I don’t know, another Phoenix Force avatar?”

“Possibly. I don’t think there could be anything like the Phoenix. It’s pretty unique.”

 

* * *

 

 

“PRETTY UNIQUE!!!”

“Calm down, dear.”

“Jean, he just completely **ignored** my existence and the existence of countless other cosmic entities. We aren’t even as powerful as Eternity.”

“He didn’t know you existed. You always were the quieter of us. And he certainly knew your avatar existed.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Moments when I let my pride get the better of me.”

“You’ve only lost control four times in the whole span of the universe.”

“Yes, but I’m worse than you. I apologise in advance for throwing you in the black hole.”

“I shattered you throughout the multiverse.”

“Yes, but I chucked you into a black hole.”

“Look, that was ages ago.”

“Yes, but it’s only a few years in the Eye.”

“Look, that’s all in the past. To be fair, you fixed it in three minutes. I left you shattered.”


	28. Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the delay. But I had a pretty big opportunity to display at one of the biggest science exhibitions in the country and I grabbed it with both hands.

“There should be enough food to last the week. I’d eat the sushi within two days, as I’m not sure how well it will keep. Everything else is non-perishable. I’m not always sure when I’ll come back so everything needs to last.”

“Thanks, Etana.”

“People don’t come here often. This place was supposed to be demolished in the 1800’s but I bought it. I learnt most of my Japanese here. I better go. Leave you two alone. Oh, and watch out for the fish. I accidentally introduced some piranhas into the pond and they’ve bred like crazy.”

“Er…piranhas?”

“I thought they were carp. The meat to feed them is in the bottom right cupboard in the kitchen.”

“How did you mistake piranhas for carp?”

“OK, I decided I wanted pet piranhas. They are brilliant. Watch out for Horace. He’s the big one who runs the pack. He was tiny when I got him.”

“Horace?”

“Ex-friend of mine.”

“Ex-?”

“Sold me out to the Nazis. My entire village was killed. That’s when I bought the piranhas. I didn’t kill him. I just dangled him there for a few days until he begged for mercy. Then I took him to the International Court. He was sentenced to death. Got off on the grounds he was insane. Kept babbling about the black angel who was going to kill him. Committed suicide in 1947.”

“Your village?”

Etana shuddered.

“I promised them safety. I even had a boy who would have one day become like Logan to me. Max. I rescued him from Auschwitz. But Horace sold us out, told how to get into the village without being seen. They were slaughtered as they slept. I woke in time to hide Max and did my best to protect the children. I killed every single attacker. But my village was destroyed. They burned my house down. Max was still in it. But that isn’t the point. I’m ruining your honeymoon. There’s a radio transmitter in the tower room. Pick any room you want. Except mine. That’s the little room with the wireless.”

She disappeared. Logan and Tora looked at each other.

“Your mother keeps piranhas.”

“She’s not my mother!”

“She’s as good as.”

“You feed the piranhas. I’ll make the food.”

“Fine. I’ve always wanted to study piranhas.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No I’m not. They’re very interesting animals.”

She started rifling through the cupboard and found the food with a note. ‘Feed piranhas every third day. One side of cow.’ And a food chart with a notice saying that they were due to be fed tomorrow.

Tora walked out and gazed into the pond. Which had about ten piranhas swimming back and forth. There was no doubt which one was Horace. He was giving her the evil eye from the bottom of the pool. She could almost guess why Etana chose them to scare the traitor. They **looked** evil.

She decided to try a test. She extended a single claw and carefully put it into the water. The change was immediate. The fish all started trying to take chunks out of the metal. She removed it and shook off the single very determined piranha.

“Communing with the wildlife?”

She turned and grinned. Logan was looking slightly depressed at the mess on the plates.

“I never could do sushi.”

She sighed slightly.

“It was prepared for us. You simply had to open the packets.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. It’s the food used for commuters.”

“Well. There’s another packet. And we could feed this to the fish.”

He tipped the ruined food into the pond and the fish went into a feeding frenzy. Then they went into the kitchen and tried to make a halfway decent meal out of the food left. In the end they gave up. It wasn’t worth it. Logan glanced at Tora who was looking over the numerous books in the corner of the room.

“No wonder she didn’t want any books. She has first editions of most classics. And the original Sherlock Holmes, as printed in the magazines.”

“Are you more interested in the books, or me?”

She turned and smiled.

“Definitely more interested in the books. But I’m not sure we’re allowed to touch them. So I’ll have to make do with you.”

“So shall we choose which room we’ll be spending the week in?”

“Might as well.”

They moved around the building. It was an old monastery. Etana had obviously spent time there, as a series of painted walls attested. It showed her arriving, being hailed as some sort of god. Then her learning to fight. An image of her with a katana. The paintings were faded, obviously not looked after. All the other paintings had been restored. But any containing Etana was left to fade. Or rather, everything except her was repainted.

Logan glanced into one of the rooms which had a low futon bed and windows with a view of the mountains. Traditional Japanese tapestries decorated the stone walls.

“This one?”

Tora glanced in, then smiled slightly.

“Definitely.”

He leant in to kiss her, glad that he had finally got her. As she responded with a warm kiss, he began to plan the night in detail.

 

* * *

 

 

The pool’s image faded to darkness.

“Why did you do that?”

“It’s private, Jean.”

“You are so **moral**.”

“Do you blame me?”

“Not really. I take it that it hurts too much.”

 

* * *

 

Logan woke as the sunlight spilled into the room. Tora was close to him, head resting on his chest. Red and black hair splayed over him. He could tell she was totally relaxed. Even when everything was fine, there was always a slight tension in her that suggested she was prepared to fight at a moments notice. He inhaled, catching her scent which was now overlain with his. She was purring slightly. He’d found she didn’t snore in her sleep or move too much. Instead she lay almost motionless until the dreams started. Then movements started slowly, as she began to pull against invisible bindings. It escalated until it reached her screaming and begging to be released. Then she’d go silent and simply shudder. He could tell what she was going through. First there was the beginning of the procedure, when they strapped her down. Then they began the initial tests and she’d try and fight back. Then the weary resignation as she realized she wasn’t going to get free. When the nightmares had begun again he’d held her close until she relaxed into his arms. He’d heard a few words muttered, mainly to someone named Eva but he wasn’t going to intrude. He knew she wouldn’t want him to intrude. And he knew she would have heard his nightmares as well. He’d not been at Weapon X. Instead he’d been screaming over the body of a murdered woman. He couldn’t remember her face or anything like that. He wasn’t certain what caused the nightmare. All he knew was he’d seen a part of his past he would rarely see.

She was stirring now, going from asleep to awake in a few seconds. None of the bleary-eyed urgh moments most people suffered. Instead her eyes opened and she was fully awake. He knew she normally woke up earliest in the whole mansion, although Etana often came down shortly afterwards. They often woke everyone else up when the mansion started shaking. In the end, training sessions had been banned before seven thirty. It was funny how well the two got on. One over three thousand years old, the other in her early twenties. But they would sit and talk for hours. Tora was the only one who didn’t get teleportation sickness with Etana, which was impressive seeing as a bamf with Kurt sent her reeling. Something about them travelling through different dimensions. Etana had tried to explain and Hank had got all excited but everyone else just gave blank looks.

Tora stretched, cat-like then started to get up.

“Want a coffee?”

“Not yet.”

He reached his arms around her, felt the raised scars on her back and pulled her in towards him.

 

* * *

 

The woman in black pulled her head away from the pool. She thought things would have gotten easier over time. But sometimes time made things hurt more. She was being hopeless, trying to gain meaning from ancient times. They were dead and gone, with the rest of them. Everyone, everything died and she couldn’t stop it.

Phoenix reached out and touched her reflections arm. They were more than sisters. They were the same, reflections of the other. Pain from one could be felt by the other. Once they had been separate entities. But since everything burned, their link had grown. Soon they would be ready to start again. And they would break apart, ready to begin their eternal fight to burn and to save. But by then, the woman would have gained the thing she desired most. Death.

 

* * *

 

Tora was glancing through the food in the cupboards. Etana wasn’t the best when it came to cooking. Nights when it was her turn to cook normally resulted in everyone going out. She couldn’t get the hang of the oven. She could work everything else technology wise but she was hopeless around the hob. She preferred to cook over an open fire. When she was allowed to, she was a pretty decent cook. It’s just she had to light the fires outside and it normally rained on her nights. So it was no surprise that the fireplace was the main cooking area. In the end she’d given up and taken to ordering out. It saved people suffering from food poisoning.

So it came as a surprise to find the place well stocked with various ingredients and a few well-thumbed hand-written cookbooks. Some looked like they had been written on vellum. A few had been circled in ink and had notes saying she thought Logan would like them. They all seemed easy to do and the ingredients were all there. Etana had done it again. Done her best to make everything easier for her. She pulled out the food and sighed.

“Logan, a little help would be appreciated.”

He looked round. She sighed again. Somehow he’d managed to find the alcohol. Which was impressive seeing as Etana was almost completely teetotal. But…she had bought beers for Logan. The beers Logan had accused Scott of stealing.

“What?”

“Can you help?”

They both began sorting out the meal, splitting the work equally. Joking about as they got the ingredients prepared, the fire lit and pans heated. Teasing each other as they waited for the water to boil. Forgetting all about the meal. Blaming themselves when the fire was put out by the boiled over water. Laughing when they finally got the meal cooked. Talking as they ate. There were no threats to the world or even just mutantkind. For one week, they were a normal couple. Or as normal as you could be when you’re in an old monastery belonging to a three-thousand year old mutant and still plan to train every day. She had a fully operating dojo in one side of the building.

“So, are we going to continue with the training Scott put us on?”

“Not a chance. He’ll never know.”

They grinned at each other. It looked as though the dojo would go unused.

 

* * *

 

Jean was the one who looked sad this time.

“What’s wrong, Phoenix?”

“Even when everything seemed perfect with me and Scott, we were never like that. Never able to laugh and be properly open. Even though Logan didn’t openly display his affection for Tora, he was always –aware of her. She’d enter the room and he’d immediately be looking at her. But they were always equals. Even later, they never allowed another to be the dominant one. So unlike Scott and me.”

“Jean…”

“And she was so lucky. How many proper arguments did they have? Did Logan ever cheat on her? Even when she was dead, he never so much as **looked** at another woman in the way he looked at her. And when she came back, I could feel his happiness. I couldn’t block it out at all. Even when I offered myself to him, he looked at me like I was nothing. Before her, he would do anything for me. After that, I was a friend. Or maybe even just his wife’s friend.”

“Jean, I know, I know…”

“She got everything I wanted so much. Family. A faithful husband. Children. Sure, she had a terrible childhood, but after that, everything became perfect. Perfect marriage, perfect kids, perfect powers.”

“Perfect? Jean, she had to live with herself. With what she did.”

“What did she do that was so terrible?”

“She took a life. Killed a defenceless opponent out of hatred and rage. She, who swore never to kill. She, who placed life so highly.”

“But… She wouldn’t kill. Why would she kill…?”

“You’ll see. I think you deserve to know the truth. Logan lied, protected her. Said he was the killer, just to stop you from looking down on her. Not that you would have. But she let go of her control for a second and it resulted in a death.”

“He thought…? Oh… Her.”

“Yes. Her.”


	29. Following

At first glance, the two woman appeared to be Jean Grey and the now Tora Logan. But the Tora double had no scars and there was a madness in her eyes. The Jean had a slight difference in her facial features and her eyes were perfectly sane, but bitter. Both were clones. Both were seething oceans of hatred. Both hated the other but were working towards a common goal. Revenge. One determined to strike out at the man who abandoned her. The other determined to kill her template. They’d met in a New York slum. Tried to kill each other, but that was normally how villain partnerships worked.

“I don’t care about planning. I need you to tell me where she is. Then I go and slit her throat.”

Madelyne Pryor-Summers rolled her eyes. She’d once met Sabretooth. This mutant was possibly even more twisted and murderous. Maddie had seen her kill a man after enticing him into an alley. For no reason other than she could. Then she’d eaten parts of him. And rung 911. When the police had turned up, she’d gone quietly, and then broken out of the high-speed security van. She was completely insane. A murderous, insane, feral mutant with the capabilities to kill even Wolverine. That was the only reason she agreed to work with her. She would be able to get her into the mansion and strike at the X-Men’s heart. In return, she’d find this “Tigress” Miss Circen seemed so desperate to kill. Unfortunately, she couldn’t sense her psychic signature. She guessed that Tigress had the same shields as Maddie’s new partner. There was absolutely nothing where the woman who called herself Poacher’s mind should be. So Maddie was trying to scan for Wolverine. He didn’t seem to be in Westchester though and Poacher had assured her that where Wolverine was, Tigress would be as well. Maddie had never really thought of the Canadian being one to settle down.

“He’s not in the US.”

“Check Japan.”

“I’m trying!”

She found the trace. It was in the mountains of Shikoku. She started the searching. Apparently an old monastery had been there. It was scheduled for demolition in the 1800s but an anonymous buyer had saved the place. It had passed from hand to hand since then, last being bought in 1983. The deeds were in the name of a Miss E. Ombre. When she went back through the records, a pattern emerged. The surname of the owner was always the same word in different languages. Shadow. However, she assumed Logan hadn’t bought the place, as every single buyer had been female. So a friend? She wouldn’t be surprised if Logan was friends with an ancient woman. She began looking up the history of the place. Apparently there used to legends of a black angel who studied there. She decided to look up this “Dark Angel”. What she found was incredibly interesting. Throughout history, the Black Angel, the Shadow, the Darkwing, kept popping up. Always where you least expected it. Always when something interesting was happening. And always fighting to protect the weak. She followed a link to a conspiracy theory site. Some people thought it was an organisation of women, others thought it was the same woman throughout all the stories. The last recorded sighting was in Vietnam. So Logan knew this “Shadow”. Very interesting. Especially since there was a story about the Shadow killing a man who was going to kill a man with Logan’s description then fleeing when this Corporal Logan went to investigate.

“He’s in Japan. Shikoku. Why do you think she’ll be with him again?”

“They’re an item. Not sure how deep they are. But Wolverine will lose another woman.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. Poacher was definitely a compulsive maniac. Even with the shields, hate was radiating from her. But she was beginning to regret agreeing to work with her.

 

* * *

 

 

“I hate clones.”

“Me too. They make the filing horrendous.”

“You can talk about filings at a time like this?”

“I just finished archiving everything.”

“Good point. You never were much of an archivist in life. It’s amazing how well you adjusted.”

“I adapt. It’s who I was.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tora sighed as she finished packing. It had been lovely to have a break, especially one alone with Logan. She blushed slightly as her digital chips picked out memories and replayed them. If anyone copied them, they would have a field day. She had a feeling Scott would have them straight back on active duty when they got back. She sighed. Jean would know soon enough that her case had been unopened. She had to remember to turn on her digital scramblers when she got back to the States. She checked to make sure she had the card that stated she had been a victim of a terrorist attack and had metal pins in her bones. Apparently, two war veterans would draw attention, especially with her being so young. She checked her passport. French citizenship, but not under the name of Marie Circen. That name was too well known. No, she was travelling as Tora Logan. She stuck the passport into her bag and did a final sweep of the room. Nothing forgotten. She inhaled and caught the various scents in the room. Luckily, Etana didn’t have enhanced senses. If she did, she’d catch all the scents. She wondered if they should have switched rooms a few times, just to play the scent down. She shrugged. It wasn’t as if anyone would be coming here for a while. She gave everything one last check before picking up her case. Logan arrived behind her.

“Got everything?”

“Yes.”

“How long before One-Eye puts us back on active duty?”

“Two minutes.”

“You’re on.”

“How long do you think?”

“One minute.”

“Deal.”

They grinned at each other. They still made the jokes they had before that day in July when she’d found her family.

“Ready to go?”

“Think so. I’ll miss this.”

“So will I. I’ll definitely miss some of the stuff we’ve done.”

She blushed at that.

“You’re hopeless Logan.”

“Come on. The plane leaves in four hours.”

She did one last sweep of the room before leaving. She was really going to miss this place.

 

* * *

 

 

“She loved that house. She kept going back there.”

“Of course she did. Some of the best things happened to her there.”

“Then she abandoned it.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Considering what happened there, I don’t blame her.”

 

* * *

 

 

The air hostess glanced at the couple in seats 4B and C again. They looked so content. Both looked asleep, her head resting on his chest, his head on hers. They had both addressed her in fluent Japanese, which was a nice change from most Americans. Although it turned out they weren’t American at all. The man was Canadian and the woman French. According to one of the ground staff, the man had been injured in some war and the woman in a terrorist attack. The woman had some bad scars on her face. It looked like she’d been mauled by an animal. She leant over towards the man.

“Excuse me sir. We will be landing in five minutes.”

He nodded once and gently shook the woman’s arm until her eyes snapped open. She glanced at him then nodded briskly, like she had guessed why he had woken her. Her eyes were odd, a deep gold colour with slightly outsized irises and more oval pupils than a normal person. The hostess wondered if she was a mutant. It would fit with the streak in her hair which was a different shade of red to the rest of her hair. In fact, it looked as though the hair had been dyed. Odd. That weird woman on the flight out looked like her. Only she didn’t have the scars. Perhaps she was her twin? Not wanting to appear nosy, the hostess moved on to the next person she was supposed to wake.

 

* * *

 

 

Phoenix reached out and touched the water. The image rippled once but didn’t change.

“I still can’t work this thing.”

Her companion smiled slightly and waved a hand, changing the image.

“Show-off.”

“It’s not everyday I get to do something better than you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Maddie could tell the place was empty. Her companion was scenting the air of the courtyard.

“They were here. They left a few hours ago.”

“So they’ve gone back?”

Poacher didn’t answer. Instead she continued to scent the air.

“There was someone else here. Not for a week but has been here for years. Female, smells of bird and cat. Mutant.”

“The Shadow?”

“Probably.”

The feral clone padded inside the building. Suddenly she opened the door to a room with a view of the mountains and sniffed hard. A cruel smile slid over her face.

“Naughty, naughty Tigress.”

“What?”

Maddie’s companion didn’t answer. Instead she just moved on. Eventually she came back to the courtyard. Maddie suddenly noticed the pond and became aware of how sore her feet were. The other woman got there first, sliding her feet into the water without bothering to look into it.

The screams echoed around the mountains.

 

* * *

 

 

Phoenix gave a self-satisfied smirk.

“Idiot.”

“Be fair. You don’t expect piranhas in a pond.”

“Good point. Too bad her feet grew back.”

“Remember Etana when she found her darling pets slaughtered.”

“Oh, that was bad. Very bad.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in posting. But life caught up with me and between work, packing to leave and a family matter I don't want to talk about, I just haven't had the time.


End file.
